by Duchess
CHAPTER XI.
Dora, after her interview with Arthur Dynecourt, feels indeed that allis lost. Hope is abandoned--nothing remains but despair; and in thisinstance despair gains in poignancy by the knowledge that she believesshe knows the man who could help them to a solution of their troubles ifhe would or dared. No; clearly he dare not! Therefore, no assistance canbe looked for from him.
Dinner at the castle has been a promiscuous sort of entertainment forthe past three or four days, so Dora feels no compunction in decliningto go to it. In her own room she sits brooding miserably over herinability to be of any use in the present crisis, when she suddenlyremembers that she had promised in the afternoon when with Florence togive her, later on, an account of her effort to obtain the truth aboutthis mystery which is harrowing them.
It is now eleven o'clock, and Dora decides that she must see Florenceat once. Rising, wearily, she is about to cross the corridor to hercousin's room, when, the door opening, she sees Florence, with a facepale and agitated, coming toward her.
"You, Florence!" she exclaims. "I was just going to you, to tell youthat my hopes of this afternoon are all--"
"Let me speak," interrupts Florence breathlessly. "I must, or--" Shesinks into a chair, her eyes close, and involuntarily she lays her handupon her heart as if to allay its tumultuous beating.
Dora, really alarmed, rushing to her dressing-case, seizes upon a flaskof eau-de-Cologne, and flings some of its contents freely over thefainting girl. Florence, with a sigh, rouses herself, and sits upright.
"There is no time to lose," she says confusedly. "Oh, Dora!" Here shebreaks down and bursts into tears.
"Try to compose yourself," entreats Dora, seeing the girl has someimportant news to impart, but is so nervous and unstrung as to be almostincapable of speaking with any coherence. But presently Florence growscalmer, and then, her voice becoming clear and full, she is able tounburden her heart.
"All this day I have been oppressed by a curious restlessness," she saysto Dora; "and, when you left me this afternoon, your vague promises ofbeing able to elucidate the terrible secret that is weighing us downmade me even more unsettled. I did not go down to dinner--"
"Neither did I," puts in Mrs. Talbot sympathetically.
"I wandered up and down my room for at least two hours, thinking always,and waiting for the moment when you would return, according to promise,and tell me the success of your hidden enterprise. You did not come, andat half past nine, unable to stay any longer in my own room with onlymy own thoughts for company, I opened my door, and, listening intently,found by the deep silence that reigned throughout the house that almostevery one was gone, if not to bed, at least to their own rooms."
"Lady FitzAlmont and Gertrude passed to their rooms about an hourago," says Dora. "But some of the men, I think, are still in thesmoking-room."
"I did not think of them. I stole from my room, and roamed idlythrough the halls. Suddenly a great--I can not help thinking now asupernaturally strong--desire to go into the servants' corridor tookpossession of me. Without allowing myself an instant's hesitation, Iturned in its direction, and walked on until I reached it."
She pauses here, and draws her breath rapidly.
"Go on," entreats Dora impatiently.
"The lamp was burning very dimly. The servants were all down-stairs--attheir supper, I suppose--because there was no trace of them anywhere.Not a sound could be heard. The whole place looked melancholy anddeserted, and filled me with a sense of awe I could not overcome. Stillit attracted me. I lingered there, walking up and down until its verymonotony wearied me; even then I was loath to leave it, and, turninginto a small sitting-room, I stood staring idly around me. At last,somewhere in the distance I heard a clock strike ten, and, turning,I decided on going back once more to my room."
Again, emotion overcoming her, Florence pauses, and leans back in herchair.
"Well, but what is there in all this to terrify you so much?" demandsher cousin, somewhat bewildered.
"Ah, give me time! Now I am coming to it," replies Florence quickly."You know the large screen that stands in the corridor just outsidethe sitting-room I have mentioned--put there, I imagined to break thedraught? Well, I had come out of the room and was standing half-hiddenby this screen, when I saw something that paralyzed me with fear."
She rises to her feet and grows deadly pale as she says this, as thoughthe sensation of fear she has been describing has come to her again.
"You saw--?" prompts Dora, rising too, and trembling violently, asthough in expectation of some fatal tidings.
"I saw the door of the room that leads to the haunted chamber slowlymove. It opened; the door that has been locked for nearly fifty years,and that has filled the breasts of all the servants here with terror anddismay, was cautiously thrown open! A scream rose to my lips, but I waseither too terrified to give utterance to it, or else some strongdetermination to know what would follow restrained me, and I stoodsilent, like one turned into stone. I had instinctively moved back astep or two, and was now completely hidden from sight, though I couldsee all that was passing in the corridor through a hole in theframework of the screen. At last a figure came with hesitatingfootsteps from behind the door into the full glare of the flickeringlamp. I could see him distinctly. It was--"
"Arthur Dynecourt!" cries the widow, covering her ghastly face with herhands.
Florence regards her with surprise.
"It was," she says at last. "But how did you guess it?"
"I knew it," cries Dora frantically. "He has murdered him, he has hiddenhis body away in that forgotten chamber. He was gloating over hisvictim, no doubt, just before you saw him, stealing down from a secretvisit to the scene of his crime."
"Dora," exclaims Florence, grasping her arm, "if he should not havemurdered him after all, if he should only have secured him there,holding him prisoner until he should see his way more clearly to gettingrid of him! If this idea be the correct one, we may yet be in time tosave, to rescue him!"
The agitation of the past hours proving now too much for her, Florencebursts into tears and sobs wildly.
"Alas, I dare not believe in any such hope!" says Dora. "I know that mantoo well to think him capable of showing any mercy."
"And yet 'that man,' as you call him, you would once have earnestlyrecommended to me as a husband!" returns Florence, sternly.
"Do not reproach me now," exclaims Dora; "later on you shall say to meall that you wish, but now moments are precious."
"You are right. Something must be done. Shall I--shall I speak to Mr.Villiers?"
"I hardly know what to advise"--distractedly. "If we give our suspicionspublicity, Arthur Dynecourt may even yet find time and opportunity tobaffle and disappoint us. Besides which, we may be wrong. He may havehad nothing to do with it, and--"
"At that rate, if secrecy is to be our first thought, let you and me goalone in search of Sir Adrian."
"Alone, and at this hour, to that awful room!" exclaims Dora, recoilingfrom her.
"Yes, at once"--firmly--"without another moment's delay."
"Oh, I can not!" declares Dora, shuddering violently.
"Then I shall go alone!"
As Florence says this, she takes up her candlestick and moves quicklytoward the door.
"Stay, I will go," cries Dora, trembling. But a slight interruptionoccurring at this instant, they are compelled to wait for awhile.
Ethel Villiers, coming into the room to make her parting adieus toMrs. Talbot, as she and her father intend leaving next morning, gazesanxiously from Florence to Dora, seeing plainly that there is somethingamiss.
"What is it?" she asks kindly, going up to Florence.
Miss Delmaine, after a little hesitation, encouraged by a glance atDora's terrified countenance, determines on taking the new-comer intotheir confidence.
In a few words she explains all that has taken place, and theirsuspicions. Ethel, though paling beneath the horror and surpriseoccasioned by the recital, does not lose h
er self-possession.
"I will go with you," she volunteers. "But, let me say," she adds, "thatI think you are wrong in making this search without a man. If--if indeedwe are still in time to be of any use to poor Sir Adrian--alwayssupposing he really is secreted in that terrible room--I do not thinkany of us would be strong enough to help him down the stairs, and, if hehas been slowly starving all this time, think how weak he will be!"
"Oh, what a wretched picture you conjure up!" exclaims Florence,nervously clasping her hands. "But you are right, and now tell me whoyou think can best be depended upon in this crisis."
"I am sure," says Ethel, blushing slightly, but speaking with intenseearnestness, "that, if you would not mind trusting Captain Ringwood, hewould be both safe and useful."
As this suggestion meets with approval, they manage to convey a messageto the captain, and in a very few minutes he is with them, and is madeacquainted with their hopes and fears.
Silently, cautiously, without any light, but carrying two small lampsready for ignition, they go down to the corridor where is the door thatleads to the secret staircase.
Turning the handle of this door, Captain Ringwood discovers that it islocked, but, nothing daunted, he pulls it so violently backward andforward that the lock, rusty with age, gives way, and leaves the passagebeyond open to them.
Going into the small landing at the foot of the staircase, they closethe door carefully behind them, and then, Captain Ringwood producingsome matches, they light the two lamps and go swiftly, with anxiouslybeating hearts, up the stairs.
The second door is reached, and now nothing remains but to mount thelast flight of steps and open the fatal door.
Their hearts at this trying moment almost fail them. They look into oneanother's blanched faces, and look there in vain for hope. At lastRingwood, touching Ethel's arm, says, in a whisper--
"Come, have courage--all may yet be well!"
He moves toward the stone steps, and they follow him. Quickly mountingthem, he lays his hand upon the door, and, afraid to give them any moretime for reflection or dread of what may yet be in store for them,throws it open.
At first the feeble light from their lamps fails to penetrate thedarkness of the gloomy apartment. At the cursory glance, such as theyat first cast round the room, it appears to be empty. Their hearts sinkwithin them. Have they indeed hoped in vain!
Dora is crying bitterly; Ethel, with her eyes fixed upon Ringwood, isreading her own disappointment in his face, when suddenly a piercing cryfrom Florence wakes the echoes round them.
She has darted forward, and is kneeling over something that even now isonly barely discernible to the others as they come nearer to it. Itlooks like a bundle of clothes, but, as they stoop over it, they, too,can see that it is in reality a human body, and apparently rigid indeath.
But the shriek that has sprung from the very soul of Florence hasreached some still living fibers in the brain of this forlorn creature.Slowly and with difficulty he raises his head, and opens a pair offast-glazing eyes. Mechanically his glance falls upon Florence. His lipsmove; a melancholy smile struggles to show itself upon his parched andblackened lips.
"Florence," he rather sighs than says, and falls back, to allappearance, dead.
"He is not dead!" cries Florence passionately. "He can not be! Oh, savehim, save him! Adrian, look up--speak to me! Oh, Adrian, make some signthat you can hear me!"
But he makes no sign. His very breath seems to have left him. Gatheringhim tenderly in her arms, Florence presses his worn and wasted faceagainst her bosom, and pushes back the hair from his forehead. He is socompletely altered, so thorough a wreck has he become, that it is indeedonly the eyes of love that could recognize him. His cheeks have fallenin, and deep hollows show themselves. His beard has grown, and is nowrough and stubbly; his hair is uncombed, the lines of want, despair, andcruel starvation have blotted out all the old fairness of his features.His clothes are hanging loosely about him; his hands, limp andnerveless, are lying by his side. Who shall tell what agony he sufferedduring these past lonely days with death--an awful, creeping, gnawingdeath staring him in the face?
A deadly silence has fallen upon the little group now gazing solemnlydown upon his quiet form. Florence, holding him closely to her heart, isgently rocking him to and fro, as though she will not be dissuaded thathe still lives.
At length Captain Ringwood, stooping pitifully over her, loosens herhold so far as to enable him to lay his hand upon Adrian's heart. Aftera moment, during which they all watch him closely, he starts, and,looking still closer into the face that a second ago he believed dead,he says, with subdued but deep excitement--
"There may yet be time! He breathes--his heart beats! Who will help meto carry him out of this dungeon?"
He shudders as he glances round him.
"I will," replies Florence calmly.
These words of hope have steadied her and braced her nerves. Etheland Mrs. Talbot, carrying the lamps, go on before, while Ringwood andFlorence, having lifted the senseless body of Adrian, now indeedsufficiently light to be an easy burden, follow them.
Reaching the corridor, they cross it hurriedly, and carrying Adrian upa back staircase that leads to Captain Ringwood's room by a circuitousroute, they gain it without encountering a single soul, and lay himgently down on Ringwood's bed, almost at the very moment that midnightchimes from the old tower, and only a few minutes before ArthurDynecourt steals from his chamber to make that last visit to hissupposed victim.