"Yes, if only to please me--for my sake."
She has evidently forgotten her late distrust of him, for she speaks now in the old sweet tone, and with tears in her eyes. Sir Adrian flushes warmly.
"For your sake," he whispers. "What is there I would not do, if thus requested?"
A bitter sneer contracts Arthur Dynecourt"s lips as he listens to the first part of this conversation and guesses at the latter half. He notes correctly the kindling of their eyes, the quick breath that comes and goes like happy sighs from the breast of Florence. He hears the whisper, sees the warm blush, and glances expressively at Dora. Meeting her eyes he says his finger on his lips to caution her to silence, and then, when pa.s.sing by her, whispers:
"Meet me in half an hour in the lower gallery."
Bowing her acquiescence in this arrangement, fearing indeed to refuse, Dora follows the others from the haunted chamber.
At the foot of the small stone staircase--before they go through the first iron-bound door that leads to the corridor without--they find Ethel Villiers awaiting them. She had been looking round her in the dimly lighted stone pa.s.sage, and has discovered another door fixed mysteriously in a corner, that had excited her curiosity.
"Where does this lead to, Sir Adrian?" she asks now, pointing to it.
"Oh, that is an old door connected with another pa.s.sage that leads by a dark and wearying staircase to the servants" corridor beneath! I am afraid you won"t be able to open it, as it is rusty with age and disuse.
The servants would as soon think of coming up here as they would of making an appointment with the Evil One; so it has not been opened for years."
"Perhaps I can manage it," says Arthur Dynecourt, trying with all his might to force the ancient lock to yield to him. At length his efforts are crowned with success; the door flies creakingly open, and a cloud of dust uprising covers them like a mist.
"Ah!" exclaims Ethel, recoiling; but Arthur, stooping forward, carefully examines the dark staircase that lies before him wrapped in impenetrable gloom. Spider-nets have been drawn from wall to wall and hang in dusky clouds from the low ceiling; a faint, stale, stifling smell greets his nostrils, yet he lingers there and looks carefully around him.
"You"ll fall into it, if you don"t mind," remarks Captain Ringwood. "One would think uncanny spots had an unwholesome attraction for you."
Ringwood, ever since the memorable night in the smoking-room, when Sir Adrian was so near being killed, has looked askance at Arthur Dynecourt, and, when taking the trouble to address him at all, has been either sharp or pointed in his remarks. Arthur, contenting himself with a scowl at him, closes the little door again, and turns away from it.
"At night," says Sir Adrian, in an amused tone, "the servants, pa.s.sing by the door below that leads up to this one, run by it as though they fear some ghostly ancestors of mine, descending from the haunted chamber, will pounce out upon them with their heads under their arms, or in some equally unpleasant position. You know the door, don"t you, Arthur--the second from the turning?"
"No," replies Arthur, with his false smile, "I do not; nor, indeed, do I care to know it. I firmly believe I should run past it too after nightfall, unless well protected."
"That looks as if you had an evil conscience," says Ringwood carelessly, but none the less purposely.
"It looks more as if I were a coward, I think," retorts Arthur, laughing, but shooting an angry glance at the gallant captain as he speaks.
"Well, what does the immortal William say?" returns Ringwood coolly.
""Conscience doth make cowards of us all!""
"You have a sharp wit, sir," says Arthur, with apparent lightness, but pale with pa.s.sion.
"I say, look here," breaks in Sir Adrian hastily, pulling out his watch; "it must be nearly time for tea. By Jove, quite half past four, and we know what Lady FitzAlmont will say to us if we keep her deprived of her favorite beverage for even five minutes. Come, let us run, or destruction will light upon our heads."
So saying, he leads the way, and soon they leave the haunted chamber and all its gloomy a.s.sociations far behind them.
CHAPTER VII.
Reluctantly, yet with a certain amount of curiosity to know what it is he may wish to say to her, Dora wends her way to the gallery to keep her appointment with Arthur. Pacing to and fro beneath the searching eyes of the gaunt cavaliers and haughty dames that gleam down upon him from their canvases upon the walls, Dynecourt impatiently awaits her coming.
"Ah, you are late!" he exclaims as she approaches. There is a tone of authority about him that dismays her.
"Not very, I think," she responds pleasantly, deeming conciliatory measures the best. "Why did you not come to the library? We all missed you so much at tea!"
"No doubt," he replies sarcastically. "I can well fancy the disappointment my absence caused; the blank looks and regretful speeches that marked my defection. Pshaw--let you and me at least be honest to each other! Did Florence, think you, shed tears because of my non-coming?"
This mood of his is so strange to her that, in spite of the natural false smoothness that belongs to her, it renders her dumb.
"Look here," he goes on savagely, "I have seen enough to-day up in that accursed room above--that haunted chamber--to show me our game is not yet won."
"Our game--what game?" asks Dora, with a foolish attempt at misconception.
He laughs aloud--a wild, unpleasant, scornful laugh, that makes her cheek turn pale. Its mirth, she tells herself, is demoniacal.
"You would get out of it now, would you?" he says. "It is too late, I tell you. You have gone some way with me, you must go the rest. I want your help, and you want mine. Will you draw back now, when the prize is half won, when a little more labor will place it within your grasp?"
"But there must be no violence," she gasps; "no attempt at--"
"What is it you would say?" he interrupts stonily. "Collect yourself; you surely do not know what you are hinting at. Violence! what do you mean by that?"
"I hardly know," she returns, trembling. "It was your look, your tone, I think, that frightened me."
"Put your nerves in your pocket for the future," he exclaims coa.r.s.ely; "they are not wanted where I am. Now to business. You want to marry Sir Adrian, as I understand, whether his desire lies in the same direction or not?"
At this plain speaking the dainty little lady winces openly.
"My own opinion is that his desire does not run in your direction,"
continues Arthur remorselessly. "We both know where his heart would gladly find its home, where he would seek a bride to place here in this grand old castle, but I will frustrate that hope if I die for it."
He grinds his teeth as he says this, and looks with fierce defiant eyes at the long rows of his ancestors that line the walls.
"She would gladly see her proud fair face looking down upon me from amidst this goodly company," he goes on, apostrophizing the absent Florence. "But that shall never be. I have sworn it; unless--I am her husband--unless--I am her husband!"
More slowly, more thoughtfully he repeats this last phrase, until Dora, affrighted by the sudden change that has disfigured his face, speaks to him to distract his attention.
"You have brought me here to--" she ventures timidly.
"Ay, to tell you what is on my mind. I have said you want to marry Adrian; I mean to marry Florence Delmaine. To-day I disliked certain symptoms I saw, that led me to believe that my own machinations have not been as successful as I could have wished. Before going in for stronger measures, there is one more card that I will play. I have written you a note. Here it is, take it"--handing her a letter folded in the c.o.c.ked-hat fashion.
"What am I to do with this?" asks Dora nervously.
"Read it. It is addressed to yourself. You will see I have copied Adrian"s handwriting as closely as possible, and have put his initials A.D. at the end. And yet"--with a diabolical smile--"it is no forgery either, as A.D. are my initials also."
Opening the note with trembling fingers, Dora reads aloud as follows:
"Can you--will you meet me to-morrow at four o"clock in the lime-walk?
I have been cold to you perhaps, but have I not had cause? You think my slight attentions to another betoken a decrease in my love for you, but in this, dearest, you are mistaken. I am yours heart and soul. For the present I dare not declare myself, for the reasons you already know, and for the same reasons am bound to keep up a seeming friendliness with some I would gladly break with altogether. But I am happy only with you, and happy too in the thought that our hearts beat as one. Yours forever, A.D."