In an instant she was on her feet and struggling to suppress the sobs that had been wrung from her by the words of Lady Saxondale.
“Dorothy,” said Quentin, his voice tender and pleading, “you have heard what Lady Saxondale had to say?”
She was now standing at the window, her back to him, her figure straight and defiant, her hands clenched in the desperate effort to regain her composure.
“Yes,” she responded, hoarsely.
“I have not come to ask your pardon for my action, but to implore you to withhold judgment against the others. I alone am to blame; they are as loyal to you as they have been to me. Whatever hatred you may have in your heart, I deserve it. Spare the others a single reproach, for they were won to my cause only after I had convinced them that they were serving you, not me. You are with true friends, the best that man or woman could have. I have not come to make any appeal for myself. There will be time enough for that later on, when you have come to realize what your deliverance means.”
She faced him, slowly, a steady calm in her face, a soft intensity in her voice.
“You need not hope that I shall forgive this outrage—ever—as long as I live. You may have had motives which from your point of view were good and justifiable—but you must not expect me to agree with you. You have done something that no love on earth could obliterate; you have robbed my memory of a sweet confidence, of the one glorious thing that made me look upon you as the best of men—your nobility. I recognize you as the leader in this cowardly conspiracy, but what must I think of these willing tools you plead for? Are they entitled to my respect any more than you? I am in your power. You can and will do with me as you like, but you cannot compel me to alter that over which I have no control—my reason. Oh, how could you do this dreadful thing, Phil?” she cried, suddenly casting the forced reserve to the winds and relapsing into a very undignified appeal. He smiled wearily and met her gaze with one in which no irresolution flickered.
“It was my only way,” he said, at last.
“The only way!” she exclaimed. “There was but one way, and I had commanded you to take it. Do you expect to justify yourself by saying it was the 'only way'? To drag me from my mother, to destroy every vestige of confidence I had in you, to make me the most talked-of woman in Europe to-day—was that the 'only way'? What are they doing and saying to-day? Of what are the newspapers talking under those horrid headlines? What are the police, the detectives, the gossips doing? I am the object on which their every thought is centered. Oh, it is maddening to think of what you, of all people, have heaped upon me!”
She paced the floor like one bereft of reason. His heart smote him as he saw the anguish he had brought into the soul of the girl he loved better than everything.
“And my poor mother. What of her? Have you no pity, no heart? Don't you see that it will kill her? For God's sake, let me go back to her, Phil! Be merciful!” she cried.
“She is safe and well, Dorothy; I swear it on my soul. True, she suffers, but it is better she should suffer now and find joy afterward than to see you suffer for a lifetime. You would not listen to me when I told you the man you were to marry was a scoundrel. There was but one way to save you from him and from yourself; there was but one way to save you for myself, and I took it. I could not and would not give you up to that villain. I love you, Dorothy; you cannot doubt that, even though you hate me for proving it to you. Everything have I dared, to save you and to win you—to make you gladly say some day that you love me.”
Her eyes blazed with scorn. “Love you? After what you have done? Oh, that I could find words to tell you how I hate you!” She stopped in front of him, her white face and gleaming eyes almost on a level with his, and he could not but quail before the bitter loathing that revealed itself so plainly. Involuntarily his hand went forth in supplication, and the look in his eyes came straight from the depths into which despair had cast him. If she saw the pain in his face her outraged sensibilities refused to recognize it.
“Dorothy, you—you—” he began, but pulled himself together quickly “I did not come in the hope of making you look at things through my eyes. It is my mission to acknowledge as true, all that Lady Saxondale has told you concerning my culpability. I alone am guilty of wrong, and I am accountable. If we are found out, I have planned carefully to protect my friends. Yet a great deal rests with you. When the law comes to drag me from this place, its officers will find me alone, with you here as my accuser. My friends will have escaped. They are your friends as well as mine. You will do them thejustice of accusing but me, for I alone am the criminal.”
“You assume a great deal when you dictate what I am to do and to say, if I have the opportunity. They are as guilty as you, and without an incentive. Do you imagine that I shall shield them? I have no more love for them than I have for you; not half the respect, for you, at least, have been consistent. Will you answer one question?”
“Certainly.”
“How long do you purpose to keep me in this place?”
“Until you, of your own free will, can utter three simple words.”
“And those words?”
“I love you.”
“Then,” she said, slowly, decisively, “I am doomed to remain here until death releases me.”
“Yes; the death of ambition.”
She turned from him with a bitter laugh, seating herself in a chair near the window. Looking up into his face, she said, with maddening submission:
“I presume your daily visits are to be a part of the torture I am to endure?”
His smile, as he shook his head in response, incensed her to the point of tears, and she was vastly relieved when he turned abruptly and left the apartment. When the maid came in she found Miss Garrison asleep on the couch, her cheeks stained with tears. Tired, despairing, angry, she had found forgetfulness for the while. Sleep sat lightly upon her troubled brain, however, for the almost noiseless movements of the maid awakened her and she sat up with a start.
“Oh, it is you!” she said, after a moment. “What is your name?'
“Baker, Miss.”
The captive sat on the edge of the couch and for many minutes watched, through narrow eyes, the movements of the servant. A plan was growing in her brain, and she was contemplating the situation in a new and determined frame of mind.
“Baker,” she said, finally, “come here.” The maid stood before her, attentively.
“Would you like to earn a thousand pounds?”
Without the faintest show of emotion, the least symptom of eagerness, Baker answered in the affirmative.
“Then you have but to serve me as I command, and the money is yours.”
“I have already been instructed to serve you, Miss.”
“I don't mean for you to dress my hair and to fasten my gown and all that. Get me out of this place and to my friends. That is what I mean,” whispered Dorothy, eagerly.
“You want to buy me, Miss?' said Baker, calmly.
“Not that, quite, Baker, but just—”
“You will not think badly of me if I cannot listen to your offer, Miss? I am to serve you here, and I want you to like me, but I cannot do what you would ask. Pardon me if I speak plainly, but I cannot be bought.” There was no mistaking the honest expression in the maid's eyes. “Lady Saxondale is my mistress, and I love her. If she asks me to take you to your friends, I will obey.”
Dorothy's lips parted and a look of incredulity grew in her eyes. For a moment she stared with unconcealed wonder upon this unusual girl, and then wonder slowly changed to admiration.
“Would that all maids were as loyal, Baker. Lady Saxondale trusts you and so shall I. But,” wonder again manifesting itself, “I cannot understand such fidelity. Not for £5,000?”
“No, Miss; thank you,” respectfully and firmly.
“Ask Lady Saxondale if I may come to her.”
The maid departed, and soon returned to say that Lady Saxondale would gladly see her. Dorothy followed her down the long, dark hall and into the boudoir of Castle Craneycrow's mistress. Lady Jane sat on the broad window seat, looking pensively out at the blue sky. There was in the room such an air of absolute peace and security that Dorothy's heart gave a sharp, wistful throb.
“I'm glad you've come, Dorothy,” said Lady Saxondale, approaching from the shadowy side of the room. Dorothy turned to see the hands of her ladyship extended as if calling her to friendly embrace. For a moment she looked into the clear, kindly eyes of the older woman, and then, overcome by a strange, inexplicable longing for love and sympathy, dropped her hands into those which were extended.
“I've come to beg, Lady Saxondale—to beg you to be kind to me, to have pity for my mother. I can ask no more,” she said, simply.
“I love you, dear; we all love you. Be content for a little while, a little while, and then you will thank Heaven and thank us.”
“I demand that you release me,” cried the other. “You are committing a crime against all justice. Release me, and I promise to forget the part you are taking in this outrage. Trust me to shield you and yours absolutely.”
“You ask me to trust you. Now, I ask you to trust me. Trust me to shield you and to—”
“You are cruel!”
“Forgive me,” said Lady Saxondale, simply. She pressed the hands warmly, and passed from the room. Dorothy felt her head reel, and there was in her heart the dread of losing something precious, she knew not what.
“Come up into the tower with me, Dorothy,” said Lady Jane, coming to her side, her voice soft and entreating. “The view is grand. Mr. Savage and I were there early this morning to see the sun rise.”
“Are you all against me? Even you, Lady Jane? Oh, how have I wronged you that I should be made to suffer so at your hands? Yes, yes! Take me to the tower! I can't stay here.”
“I shall ask Mr. Savage to go with us. He will hold you. It would be too bad to have you try to fly from up there, because it's a long way to the crags, and you'd never fly again—in this world, at least. I believe I'll call Dickey, to be on the safe side.”
There was something so merry, so free and unrestrained about her that Dorothy smiled in spite of herself. With a new sensation in her heart, she followed her guide to the top of the broad stairway. Here her ladyship paused, placed two pink fingers between her teeth, and sent a shrill whistle sounding down between the high walls.
“All right!” came a happy voice from below. There was a scramble of feet, two or three varied exclamations in masculine tones, and then Mr. Savage came bounding up the stairs. “Playing chess with your brother and had to break up the game. When duty calls, you know. Morning, Miss Garrison. What's up?”
“We're just on the point of going up,” said Jane, sweetly. “Up in the tower. Miss Garrison wants to see how far she can fly.”
“About 800 feet, I should say, Miss Garrison. It's quite a drop to the rocks down there. Well, we're off to the top of Craneycrow. Isn't that a jolly old name?”
“Chick o' me, Chick o' me, Craneycrow, Went to the well to wash her toe, When she got back her chicken was dead—chick o' me, Chick o' me, chop off his head—What time is it, old witch?”
“Who gave the castle such an odd, uncanny name?” asked Dorothy, under the spell of their blithesome spirits.
“Lady Jane—the young lady on your left, an' may it please you, Miss,” said Dickey.
“Bob couldn't think of a name for the old thing, so he commissioned me. Isn't Craneycrow delightful? Crane—that's a bird, you know, and crow is another bird, too, you know; isn't it a joy? I'm so proud of it,” cried Lady Jane, as she scurried up the narrow, winding stone steps that led to the top of the tower. Dorothy followed more sedately, the new-born smile on her lips, the excitement of a new emotion surging over the wall of anger she had thrown up against these people.
“I wish I could go out and explore the hills and rocks about this place,” said Dickey, wistfully.
“Why can't you? Is it dangerous?” queried Dorothy.
“Heavens, no! Perfectly safe in that respect. Oh, I forgot; you don't know, of course. Phil Quentin and your devoted servant are not permitted to show their faces outside these walls.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you see, we're in America. Don't you understand? You're not the only prisoner, Miss Garrison. Behold two bold, bad bandits as your fellow captives. Alas! that I should have come to the cruel prison cell!”
“I had not thought of that,” said Miss Garrison, reflectively, and then she looked upon Dickey with a new interest. They crawled through the trap door and out upon the stone-paved, airy crown of the tower. She uttered an exclamation of awe and shrank back from the sky that seemed to press down upon her. Nothing but sky—blue sky! Then she peered over the low wall, down upon the rocks below, and shuddered.
“Hello, Phil! Great, isn't it?” exclaimed Dickey, and Dorothy realized that Quentin was somewhere behind her in the little rock-bound circle among the clouds. A chill fell upon her heart, and she would not turn toward the man whose very name brought rage to her heart.
“Magnificent! I have been up here in the sun and the gale for half an hour. Here are the newspapers, Lady Jane; Bob's man brought them an hour ago. There is something in them that will interest you, Dorothy. Pardon me, but I must go down. And don't fall off the tower, Lady Jane.”
“Don't worry, grandfather; I'll be a good little girl and I shan't fall off the tower, because I'm so afraid you'd find it out and beat me and send me to bed without my supper. Won't you stay up just a wee bit longer?”
“Now, don't coax, little girl. I must go down.”
“See you later,” Dickey called after him as he disappeared through the narrow opening. Dorothy turned her stony face slightly, and quick, angry eyes looked for an instant into the upturned face of the man who was swallowed in the darkness of the trap hole almost in the same second.
“Don't fall off the tower, Lady Jane,” came the hollow voice from the ladders far below, and, to Dorothy's sensitive ears, there was the most devilish mockery in the tones.
“I can forgive all of you—all of you, but—but—never that inhuman wretch! Oh, how I hate him!” cried she, her face ablaze, her voice trembling with passion.
“Oh, Dorothy!” cried Lady Jane, softly, imploringly.
“I wish from my soul, that this tower might tumble down and kill him this instant, and that his bones could never be found!” wailed the other.
“There's an awful weight above him, Miss Garrison—the weight of your wrath,” said Dickey, without a smile.
After returning to her room later on, Dorothy eagerly devoured the contents of the newspapers, which were a day or two old. They devoted columns to the great abduction mystery; pictured the grief of the mother and marvelled at her courage and fortitude; traced the brigands over divers streets to the deserted house; gave interviews with the bride's fiance, her uncle and the servants who were found in the stables; speculated on the designs of the robbers, their whereabouts and the nature of their next move; drew vivid and terrifying visions of the lovely bride lying in some wretched cave, hovel or cellar, tortured and suffering the agony of the damned. Opinions of police officers disclosed some astonishing solutions to the mystery, but, withal, there was a tone of utter bewilderment in the situation as they pictured it. She read the long and valiant declaration of Prince Ugo Ravorelli, the frantic, broken-hearted bridegroom, in which he swore to rescue the fair one from the dastards, “whoever and wherever they might be.” Somehow, to her, his words, in cold print, looked false, artificial, theatrical—anything but brave and convincing.
She stared in amazement at the proclamation offering 100,000 francs for her restoration. The general opinion, however, was that the abductors might reasonably be expected to submit a proposition to give up their prize for not less than twice the amount. To a man the police maintained that Miss Garrison was confined somewhere in the city of Brussels. There were, with the speculations and conjectures, no end of biographical sketches and portraits. She found herself reading with a sort of amused interest the story of how one of the maids had buckled her satin slippers, another had dressed her hair, another had done something and another something else. It was all very entertaining, in spite of the conditions that made the stories possible. But what amused her most of all were the wild guesses as to her present whereabouts. There was a direful unanimity of opinion that she was groveling in her priceless wedding-gown on the floor of some dark, filthy cellar. The papers vividly painted her as haggard, faint, despairing of succor, beating her breast and tearing her beautiful hair in the confines of a foul-smelling hole in the ground, crying for help in tones that would melt a heart of stone, and guarded by devils in the guise of men.
Then she came to the paragraph which urged the utmost punishment that law could inflict upon the desperadoes. The outraged populace could be appeased with nothing save death in its most ignominious, inglorious form. The trials would be short, the punishment swift and sure. The people demanded the lives of the villains.
For a long time she sat with expressionless eyes, staring at the wall opposite, thinking of the five persons who kept her a prisoner, thinking of the lives the people longed to take, thinking of death. Death to pretty Lady Jane, to Lady Saxondale, to Lord Bob, to Dickey Savage—the hunted—and to Philip Quentin, the arch conspirator! To kill them, to butcher them, to tear them to pieces—that was what it meant, if they were taken before the maddened people. When Baker brought in the tea, Dorothy was shivering as one with a chill, and there was a new terror in her soul. What if they were taken? Could she endure the thought that death was sure to come to them, or to two of 'them, at least? Two of the men? Two Americans?
During the next three days she refused to leave her room, coldly declining the cordial invitations to make one of a very merry house party, as Lady Jane called it. Her meals were sent to her room, and Baker was her constant attendant. Into her cheek came the dull white of loneliness and despair, into her eye the fever of unrest. The visits met with disdain, and gradually they became less frequent. On the third day of this self-inflicted separation she sat alone from early morn until dusk without the first sign of a visit from either Lady Saxondale or Lady Jane.
All day long she had been expecting them, and now she was beginning to hunger for them. A ridiculous, inconsistent irritation had been building itself in her heart since midday, and at dusk it reached its limit in unmistakable rage. That they might be willing to ignore her entirely had not entered her mind before. Her heart was very bitter toward the disagreeable creatures who left her alone all day in a stuffy room, and in a most horrid temper to boot.
From below, at different times during the afternoon, came the happy laughter of men and women, rollicking songs, the banging of a piano in tantalizing “rag-time” by strong New York fingers, the soft boom of a Chinese dinner gong and—oh! it was maddening to sit away up there and picture the heartless joy that reigned below. When Baker left the room, Dorothy, like a guilty child, sneaked—actually sneaked—to the hall door, opened it softly, and listened with wrathful longing to the signs of life and good cheer that came to her ears. Desolate, dispirited, hungry for the companionship of even thieves and robbers, she dragged herself to the broad window and looked darkly down upon the green and gray world.
Her pride was having a mighty battle. For three long days had she maintained a stubborn resistance to all the allurements they could offer; she had been strong and steadfast to her purpose until this hour came to make her loneliness almost unendurable—the hour when she saw they were mean enough to pay her in the coin of her own making. Now she was crying for them to come and lift the pall of solitude, to brighten the world for her, to drive the deadly sickness out of her heart. They had ignored her for a whole day, because, she was reasonable enough to see, they felt she did not want them to be near her. Would they never come to her again? Pride was commanding her to scorn them forever, but a lonely heart was begging for fellowship.
“Baker!” she called, suddenly, turning from the window, her face aglow, her breath coming fast, her heart bounding with a new resolution—or the breaking of an old one. Baker did not respond at once, and the now thoroughly aroused young lady hurried impatiently to the bedchamber in quest of her. The maid was seated in a window, with ears as deaf as a stone, reading the harrowing news from the latest newspaper that had come to Castle Craneycrow. Dorothy had read every line of the newest developments, and had laughed scornfully over the absurd clews the police were following. She had been seen simultaneously in Liverpool and in London and in Paris and in Brussels. And by reputable witnesses, too.
“Baker!”
“Yes, Miss,” and the paper rattled to the floor, for there was a new tone in the voice that called to her.
“You may go to Lady Saxondale and say that I accept yesterday's invitation to dine with her and Lord Saxondale.”
“Yesterday's invitation—you mean to-day's, Miss—” in bewildered tones.
“I mean yesterday's, Baker. You forget that I have no invitation for to-day. Tell her that Miss Garrison will be delighted to dine with her.”
Baker flew out of the room and downstairs with the message, the purport of which did not sift through her puzzled head until Lady Saxondale smiled and instructed her to inform Miss Garrison that she would be charmed to have her dine with her both yesterday and to-day.
In the meantime Dorothy was reproaching herself for her weakness in surrendering. She would meet Quentin, perhaps be placed beside him. While she could not or would not speak to him, the situation was sure to be uncomfortable. And they would think she was giving in to them, and he would think she was giving in to him—and—but anything was better than exile.
While standing at the window awaiting Baker's return, her gaze fell upon a solitary figure, trudging along the white, snake-like road, far down among the foothills—the figure of a priest in his long black robe. He was the first man she had seen on the road, and she watched him with curious, speculative eyes.
“A holy priest,” she was thinking; “the friend of all in distress. Why not me? Would he, could he help me? Oh, good father, if you could but hear me, if I could but reach your ears! How far away he is, what a little speck he seems away down there! Why, I believe he is—yes, he is looking up at the castle. Can he see me? But, pshaw! How could he know that I am held here against my will? Even if he sees my handkerchief, how can he know that I want him to help me?” She was waving her handkerchief to the lonely figure in the road. To her amazement he paused, apparently attracted by the signal. For a brief instant he gazed upward, then dropped his cowled head and moved slowly away. She watched him until the trees of the valley hid his form from view, and she was alone with the small hope that he might again some day pass over the lonely road and understand.
When the dinner gong rang, she was ready to face the party, but there was a lively thumping in her breast as she made her way down the steps. At the bottom she was met by Lady Saxondale, and a moment later Lord Bob came up, smiling and good-natured. There was a sudden rush of warmth to her heart, the bubbling over of some queer emotion, and she was wringing their hands with a gladness she could not conceal.
“I am so lonely up there, Lady Saxondale,” she said, simply, unreservedly.
“Try to look upon us as friends, Dorothy; trust us, and you will find more happiness here than you suspect. Castle Craneycrow was born and went to ruin in the midst of feud and strife; it has outlived its feudal days, so let there be no war between us,” said her ladyship, earnestly.
“If we must live together within its battered walls, let us hoist a flag of truce, pick up the gauntlet and tie up the dogs of war,” added bluff Lord Bob.
Dorothy smiled, and said: “There is one here who is not and can never be included in our truce. I ask you to protect me from him. That is the one condition I impose.”
“You have no enemies here, my dear.”
“But I have a much too zealous friend.”
“Last call for dinner in the dining-car,” shouted Dickey Savage, corning down the stairs hurriedly. “I was afraid I'd be late. Glad to see you. I haven't had a chance to ask how you enjoyed that view from the tower the other day.” She had given him her hand and he was shaking it rapturously.
“It was glorious, and I haven't had the opportunity to ask if you have explored the hills and forest.”
“I'm afraid of snakes and other creeping things,” he said, slyly.
They had gone to the dining-room when Quentin entered. He was paler than usual, but he was as calm, as easy and as self-possessed as if he had never known a conscience in all his life. She was not looking at him when he bowed to her, but she heard his clear voice say:
“I am glad to see you, Dorothy.”
He sat across the table, beside Lady Jane, who was opposite Dorothy. If he noticed that she failed to return his greeting, he was not troubled. To his credit be it said, however, he did not again address a remark to her during the meal. Within the sound of his voice, under the spell of his presence, in such close proximity to his strong, full-blooded body, she could not but give a part of her thought to this man who, of all others, the mob would slay if they had the chance.
She could not conceal from herself the relief she felt in mingling with friends. A willful admiration grew full in the face of resentful opposition, and there was a reckless downfall of dignity. They treated her without restraint, talked as freely of their affairs as if she were not there, boldly discussed the situation in Brussels, and laughed over the frantic efforts of the authorities. Helplessly she was drawn into the conversation, and, at last, to her dismay, joined with them in condolences to the police.
“But some day they will find the right trail and pounce upon you like so many wild beasts,” she said, soberly. “What then? You may be laughing too soon.”
“It would be hard luck to have to break up such an awfully nice house party,” said Dickey, solemnly.
“And the papers say they will kill us without compunction,” added Lady Jane.
“It wouldn't be the first slaughter this old house has known,” said Lord Bob. “In the old days they used to kill people here as a form of amusement.”
“It might amuse some people even in our case, but not for me, thanks,” said Quentin. “They'd execute me first, however, and I wouldn't have to endure the grief of seeing the rest of you tossed out of the windows.”
“Do you really believe they would kill poor little me?” demanded Lady Jane, slowly, her eyes fastened on her brother's face.
“Good Heaven, no!” cried Dorothy, at the possibility of such a calamity. “Why should they kill a helpless girl like you?”
“But I am one of the wretches they are hunting for. I'm a desperado,” argued Lady Jane.
“I'd insist on their killing Lady Jane just the same as the rest of us. It would be all wrong to discriminate, even if she is young and—and—well, far from ugly,” declared Dickey, decidedly.
“You might try to save my life, Mr. Savage; it would be the heroic thing to do,” she said.
“Well I'll agree to let 'em kill me twice if it will do any good. They'd surely be obliging if I said it was to please a lady. Couldn't you suggest something of the kind to them, Miss Garrison? You know the whole massacre is in your honor, and I imagine you might have a good bit to say about the minor details. Of course, Lady Jane and I are minor details—purely incidentals.”
“We are in the chorus, only,” added Lady Jane, humbly.
“If you persist in this talk about being killed, I'll go upstairs and never come down again,” cried Dorothy, wretchedly, and the company laughed without restraint.
“Dickey, if you say another word that sounds like 'kill' I'll murder you myself,” threatened Lord Bob.
Lady Jane began whetting a silver table knife on the edge of her plate.
That evening Dorothy did not listen to Dickey Savage's rag-time music from an upstairs room. She stood, with Lady Jane, beside the piano bench and fervently applauded, joined in the chorus and consoled herself with the thought that it was better to be a merry prisoner than a doleful one. She played while Dickey and Jane danced, and she laughed at the former's valiant efforts to teach the English girl how to “cake walk.”
Philip Quentin, with his elbows on the piano, moodily watched her hands, occasionally relaxing into a smile when the laughter became general. Not once did he address her, and not once did she look up at him. At last he wandered away, and when next she saw him he was sitting in a far corner of the big room, his eyes half closed, his head resting comfortably against the high back of the chair.
Lord and Lady Saxondale hovered about the friendly piano, and there was but one who looked the outcast. Conditions had changed. She was within a circle of pleasure, he outside. She gloated in the fact that he had been driven into temporary exile, and that he could not find a place in the circle as long as she was there. Occasionally one or the other of his accomplices glanced anxiously toward the quiet outsider, but no one asked him to come into the fold. In the end, his indifference began to irritate her. When Lady Saxondale rang for the candles near the midnight hour, she took her candlestick from the maid, with no little relief, and unceremoniously made her way toward the hall. She nervously uttered a general good-night to the party and flushed angrily when Quentin's voice responded with the others:
“Good-night, Dorothy.”
“I cannot endure it,” she cried to herself a dozen times before morning. “I shall go mad if I have to see his face and hear his voice and feel that he is looking at me. There must be a way to escape from this place, there must be a way. I will risk anything to get away from him!”
At breakfast she did not see him; he had eaten earlier with Lord Bob. The others noted the hunted look in her eye and saw that she had passed a sleepless night. The most stupendous of Dickey's efforts to enliven the dreary table failed, and there was utter collapse to the rosy hopes they had begun to build. Her brain was filled by one great thought—escape. While they were jesting she was wondering how and where she could find the underground passages of which they had spoken and to what point they would lead.
“I'd give a round sum if I could grow a set of whiskers as readily and as liberally as Turk,” commented Dickey, sadly. “He came out of Phil's room this morning, and I dodged behind a door post, thinking he was a burglar. Turk looks like a wild man from Borneo, and his whiskers are not ten days out. He's letting 'em grow so that he can venture outside the castle without fear of recognition. I'd like to get outside these walls for half a day.”
“I detest whiskers,” decided Lady Jane.
“So do I, especially Turk's. But they're vastly convenient, just the same. In a couple of days Turk won't know himself when he looks in the mirror. I believe I'll try to cultivate a bunch.”
“I'm sure they would improve you very much,” said Lady Jane, aggressively. “What is your idea as to color?”
“Well, I rather fancy a nice amber. I can get one color as easily as another. Have you a preference?”
“I think pink or blue would become you, Dickey. But don't let my prejudices influence you. Of course, it can't make any difference, because I won't recognize you, you know.”
“In other words, if I don't cut my whiskers you'll cut me?”
“Dead.”
“Lots of nice men have whiskers.”
“And so do the goats.”
“But a brigand always has a full set—in the opera, at least.”
“You are only a brigand's apprentice, and, besides, this isn't an opera. It is a society tragedy.”
“Won't you have another egg?” he asked, looking politely at her plate. Then he inquired if Miss Garrison would like to join him in a climb among the rocks. She smiled wistfully and said she would be charmed to do so if she were not too feeble with age when the time came to start.
Consumed with a desire to acquaint herself with her surroundings, she begged her companions to take her over the castle from turret to cellar. Later in the day, with Turk carrying the lantern, she was eagerly taking notes in the vast, spooky caves of Craneycrow.
Vaulted chambers here, narrow passages there, spider-ridden ceilings that awoke to life as the stooping visitors rustled beneath them, slimy walls and ringing floors, all went to make up the vast grave in which she was to bury all hope of escape. Immense were the iron-bound doors that led from one room to another; huge the bolts and rusty the hinges; gruesome and icy the atmosphere; narrow the steps that led to regions deeper in the bowels of the earth. Dorothy's heart sank like lead as she surveyed the impregnable walls and listened to the mighty groans of long-sleeping doors as the shoulder of the sturdy Turk awoke them to torpid activity. There was surprise and resentment in the creak of grim old hinges, in the moans of rheumatic timbers, in the jangle of lazy chains and locks. The stones on which they trod seemed to snap back in the echo of their footfalls a harsh, strident laugh of derision. Every shadow grinned mockingly at her; the very darkness ahead of the lantern's way seemed to snort angrily at the approach of the intruders. The whole of that rockbound dungeon roared defiance in answer to her timid prayer, and snarled an ugly challenge to her courage.
Lady Saxondale and Dickey confronted two rather pale-faced girls when the party of explorers again stood in the sunlit halls above. Across their shrinking faces cobwebs were lashed, plastered with the dank moisture of ages; in their eyes gleamed relief and from their lips came long breaths of thankfulness. Turk, out of sight and hearing, was roundly cursing the luck that had given him such a disagreeable task as the one just ended. From the broad, warm windows in the south drawing-room, once the great banquet hall, the quartet of uncomfortable sight-seekers looked out upon the open courtyard that stretched down to the fort-like wall, and for the moment Dorothy envied Philip Quentin. He was briskly pacing the stone-paved inclosure, smoking his pipe and basking in the sunshine that had never penetrated to the horrors of Castle Craneycrow. Lord Bob was serenely lounging on a broad oaken bench, his back to the sun, reading from some musty-backed book.
“Oh, won't you let me go out in the sun for just a little while?” she cried, imploringly. A mist came over Lady Saxondale's eyes and Dickey turned away abruptly.
“As often as you like, Dorothy. The courtyard is yours as much as it is ours. Jane, will you take her through our fort? Show her the walls, the parapets, the bastions, and where the moat and drawbridge were when the place was young. It is very interesting, Dorothy.”
With Dickey and Lady Jane, Dorothy passed into the courtyard and into the open air for the first time in nearly a week. She felt like a bird with clipped wings. The most casual inspection convinced her that there was no possible chance of escape from the walled quadrangle, in the center of which loomed the immense, weather-painted castle. The wall was high and its strength was as unbroken as in its earliest days. Lord Saxondale joined them and explained to her all the points of interest about the castle as viewed from the outside, but Quentin quietly abandoned his walk and disappeared.
“It is as difficult to get out of Castle Craney-crow as it is to get in, I dare say,” observed Dorothy, looking with awe upon the grim old pile of rocks, they called a castle. Far above their heads stood the tower, from which she had seen earth and sky as if in a panorama, three days before.
“One might be able to get out if he could fly. It seems the only way, provided, of course, there were opposition to his departure,” said Lord Bob, smiling.
“Alas, I cannot fly,” she said, directly.
At the rear of the castle, where the stonework had been battered down by time, man and the elements, she saw several servants at work. “You have trustworthy servants, Lord Saxondale. I have tried to bribe one of them.”
“You see, Miss Garrison, they love Lady Frances. That is the secret of their loyalty. The chances are they'd sell me out to-morrow, but they'd die before they'd cut loose from my wife. By Jove, I don't understand how it is that everybody is won over by you American women.”
During the trip through the cellars, Dorothy had learned that the secret passages to the outside world began in the big chamber under the tower. Lady Saxondale had unwittingly confessed, while they were in the room, that two of the big rocks in the wall were false and that they were in reality doors which opened into the passages. One of the passages was over a mile long, and there were hundreds of steps to descend before one reached a level where walking was not laborious. The point of egress was through a hidden cave up the valley, near the ruins of an old church. Where the other passage had once led to she did not know, for it had been closed by the caving in of a great pile of rocks.
With a determined spirit and a quaking courage, Dorothy vowed that she would sooner or later find this passage-way and make a bold dash for liberty. Her nerves were tingling with excitement, eagerness and a horror of the undertaking, and she could scarcely control herself until the opportunity might come for a surreptitious visit to the underground regions. Her first thought was to locate, if possible, the secret door leading into the passage. With that knowledge in her possession she could begin the flight at once, or await a favorable hour on some later day.
That very afternoon brought the opportunity for which she was waiting. The other women retired for their naps, and the men went to the billiard room. The lower halls were deserted, and she had little difficulty in making her way unseen to the door that led to the basement. Here she paused irresolutely, the recollection of the dismal, grasping solitude that dwelt beyond the portal sending again the chill to her bones.
She remembered that Turk had hung the lantern on a peg just inside the door, and she had provided herself with matches. To turn the key, open the door, pass through and close it, required no vast amount of courage, for it would be but an instant until she could have a light. Almost before she knew what she had done, she was in the drafty, damp stairway, and the heavy door was between her and her unsuspecting captors. With trembling, agitated fingers she struck a match. It flickered and went out. Another and another met the same fate, and she began to despair. The darkness seemed to choke her, a sudden panic rushed up and overwhelmed her fainting courage, and with a smothered cry of terror she turned to throw open the door. But the door refused to open! A modern spring lock had set itself against her return to the coveted security of the halls above.
A deathly faintness came over her. She sobbed as she threw herself against the stubborn door and pounded upon its panels with her hands. Something dreadful seemed to be crawling up from behind, out of the cavernous hole that was always night. The paroxysms of fear and dread finally gave way to despair, and despair is ever the parent of pluck. Impatiently she again undertook the task of lighting the lantern, fearing to breathe lest she destroy the wavering, treacherous flame that burnt inside her bleeding hands. Her pretty knuckles were bruised and cut in the reckless pounding on the door.
At last the candle inside the lantern's glass began to flicker feebly, and then came the certainty that perseverance had been rewarded. Light filled the narrow way, and she looked timidly down the rickety stone steps, dreading to venture into the blackness beyond. Ahead lay the possibility of escape, behind lay failure and the certainty that no other opportunity would be afforded her. So she bravely went down the steps, her knees weakly striking against each other, the lantern jangling noisily against the stone wall.
How she managed to reach the chamber under the tower she could not have told afterward; she did not know at the time. At last, however, she stood, with blood chilled to the curdling point, in the center of the room that knew the way to the outside world. Pounding on the rocky walls with a piece of stone against which her foot had struck, she at length found a block that gave forth the hollow sound she longed to hear. Here, then, was the key to the passage, and it only remained for her to discover the means by which the osbtruction could be moved from the opening.
For half an hour, cold with fear and nervousness, she sought for the traditional spring, but her efforts were in vain. There was absolutely no solution, and it dawned upon her that she was doomed to return to the upper world defeated. Indeed, unless she could make those in the castle hear her cries, it was possible that she might actually die of starvation in the pitiless cavern. The lantern dropped from her palsied fingers, and she half sank against the stubborn door in the wall. To be back once more in the rooms above, with cheery human beings instead of with the spirits of she knew not how many murdered men and women, was now her only desire, her only petition.
The contact of her body with the slab in some way brought about the result for which she had striven. The door moved slowly downward and a dash of freezing air came from the widening aperture at the top, blowing damp across her face. Staggering away from the ghostlike hole that seemed to grin fiendishly until it spread itself into a long, black gulf with eyes, a voice, and clammy hands, she grabbed up the still lighted lantern and cried aloud in a frenzy of fear. The door slowly sank out of sight and the way was open but her courage was gone. What was beyond that black hole? Could she live in the foul air that poured forth from that dismal mouth? Trembling like a leaf, she lifted the lantern and peered into the aperture, standing quite close to the edge.
Her eyes fastened themselves in mute horror upon the object that first met their gaze; she could not breathe, her heart ceased beating, and every vestige of life seemed to pass beyond recall. She was looking upon the skeleton of a human being, crouched, hunched against the wall of the narrow passage, a headless skeleton, for the skull rolled out against her feet as the sliding door sank below the level. Slowly she backed away from the door, not knowing what she did, conscious only that her eyes could not be drawn from the horrifying spectacle.
“Oh, God!” she moaned, in direst terror. Her ghastly companion seemed to edge himself toward her, an illusion born in the changing position of the light as she retreated.
“Dorothy,” came a voice behind her, and she screamed aloud in terror, dropping the lantern and covering her face with her hands. As she swayed limply, a pair of arms closed about her and a voice she knew so well called her name again and again. She did not swoon, but it was an interminably long time to him before she exhibited the faintest sign of life other than the convulsive shudders that swept through her body. At last her hands clasped his arm fiercely and her body stiffened.
“Is it you, Phil? Oh, is it really you? Take me away from this place! Anywhere, anywhere! I'll do anything you say, but don't let that awful thing come near me!” she wailed. By the flickering light he caught the terrified expression in her eyes.
“You are safe, dear. I'll carry you upstairs, if you like,” he said, softly.
“I can walk, or run. Oh, why did I come here? But, Phil,” suddenly, “we are locked in this place. We can't get out!”
“Oh, yes, we can,” he cried, quickly. “Come with me.” He picked up the lantern, threw an arm about her and hurried toward the stairs that led aloft. Afterwards he was not ashamed to admit that he imagined he felt bony hands clutching at him from behind, and fear lent speed to his legs. Up the stairs they crowded, and he clutched at the huge handle on the door. In surprise, he threw his weight against the timbers, and a moment later dropped back with an exclamation of dismay. The door was locked!
“What does it mean!” he gasped. “I left it standing open when I came down. The draft must have shut it. Don't be alarmed, Dorothy; I'll kick the damned thing down. What an idiot I was to tell no one that I was coming down here.” But his kicking did not budge the door, and the noise did not bring relief. She held the lantern while he fought with the barricade, and she was strangely calm and brave. The queer turn of affairs was gradually making itself felt, and her brain was clearing quickly. She was not afraid, now that he was there, but a new sensation was rushing into her heart. It was the sensation of shame and humiliation. That he, of all men, should find her in that unhappy, inglorious plight, ending her bold dash for freedom with the most womanly of failures, was far from comforting, to say the least.
“Dorothy, I can't move it. I've kicked my toes off, and my knees are bleeding, but there it stands like a rock. We've got to stay here till some one chances to hear us,” he said, ruefully. “Are you afraid now?”
“Why didn't you spring the lock when you came down? This is a pretty pass, I must say,” she said, her voice still shaky, her logic abnormal.
“I like that! Were you any better off before I came than you are now? How were you going to get out, may I ask?” he demanded, coolly seating himself on the top step. She stood leaning against the wooden door, the diplomatic lantern between them.
“I was going out by another way,” she said, shortly, but a shudder gave the lie to the declaration.
“Do you know where that hidden passage leads to?” he asked, looking up into her face. She was brushing cobwebs from her dress.
“To a cave near the old church,” she replied, triumphantly.
“Blissful ignorance!” he laughed. “It doesn't lead anywhere as it now exists. You see, there was a cave-in a few decades ago—”
“Is that the one that caved in?” she cried, in dismay.
“So Saxondale tells me.”
“And—and how did the—the—how did that awful thing get in there?” she asked, a new awe coming over her.
“Well, that's hard to tell. Bob says the door has never been opened, to his knowledge. Nobody knows the secret combination, or whatever you call it. The chances are that the poor fellow whose bones we saw got locked in there and couldn't get out. So he died. That's what might have happened to you, you know.”
“Oh, you brute! How can you suggest such a thing?” she cried, and she longed to sit close beside him, even though he was her most detested enemy.
“Oh, I would have saved you from that fate, never fear.”
“But you could not have known that I was inside the passage.”
“Do you suppose I came down here on a pleasure trip?”
“You—you don't mean that you knew I was here?”
“Certainly; it is why I came to this blessed spot. It is my duty to see that no harm comes to you, Dorothy.”
“I prefer to be called Miss Garrison,” coldly.
“If you had been merely Miss Garrison to me, you'd be off on a bridal tour with Ravorelli at this moment, instead of enjoying a rather unusual tete-a-tete with me. Seriously, Dorothy, you will be wise if you submit to the inevitable until fate brings a change of its own accord. You are brave and determined, I know, and I love you more than ever for this daring attempt to get out of Craneycrow, but you don't know what it might have brought you to. Good heavens, no one knows what dangers lie in those awful passages. They have not been used in a hundred years. Think of what you were risking. Don't, for your own sake, try anything so uncertain again. I knew you were down here, but no one else knows. How you opened that secret door, I do not know, but we both know what happened to one other poor wretch who solved the mystery.”
“I didn't solve it, really I didn't. I don't know how it happened. It just opened, that's all, and then I—oh, it was terrible!” She covered her eyes with her hands and he leaped to his feet.
“Don't think about it, Dorothy. It was enough to frighten you to death. Gad, I should have gone mad had I been in your place.” He put his arm about her shoulder, and for a moment she offered no resistance. Then she remembered who and what he was and imperiously lifted angry eyes to his.
“The skeleton may have been a gentleman in his day, Mr. Quentin. Even now, as I think of him in horror, he could not be as detestable as you. Open this door, sir!” she said, her voice quivering with indignation.
“I wish I could—Dorothy, you don't believe that I have the power to open this door and am blackguard enough to keep you here? My God, what do you think I am?” he cried, drawing away from her.
“Open this door!” she commanded, resolutely. He looked long and earnestly into her unflinching eyes, and his heart chilled as if ice had clogged the blood.
“I cannot open it,” he said at last. With not another word he sat down again at her feet, and, for what seemed like an age, neither spoke. The lantern sputtered warningly, but they did not know the light of its life was ebbing away. They breathed and thought, and that was all. At length the chill air began to tell, and he plainly heard the chatter of her teeth, the rustling of her dress as her body shivered. He arose, stiff and cold, drew off his coat and threw it about her shoulders. She resisted at first, but he was master. Later his waistcoat was wrapped about her throat and the warm lantern was placed at her feet, but she never gave him one look of gratitude.
At intervals he pounded on the door until finally there came the joyous, rasping sound of a key in the lock, and then excited exclamations filled the ears of the two prisoners.