"
"He is below!" she cried, and a flush dyed her pale cheeks, a
light of gladness quickened her sad eyes. Already she had
gathered from his cunning words a new and comforting explanation
of the things reported to her. "He is below!" she repeated. "Oh!"
She turned from him, and in an instant was speeding towards the
door.
He stood rooted there, his nether lip between his teeth, his face
a ghastly white, whilst she ran on.
"My lord! Robin! Robin!" he heard her calling, as she crossed the
corridor. Then came a piercing scream that echoed through the
silent house; a pause; a crashing thud below; and--silence.
Sir Richard remained by the table, immovable. Blood was trickling
down his chin. He had sunk his teeth through his lip when that
scream rang out. A long moment thus, as if entranced, awe-
stricken. Then he braced himself, and went forward, reeling at
first like a drunken man. But by the time he had reached the
stairs he was master of himself again. Swiftly, for all his
trembling fingers, he unfastened the cord's end from the newel-
post. The wrench upon it had already pulled the bodkin from the
wainscot. He went down that abrupt spiral staircase at a moderate
pace, mechanically coiling the length of whip-cord, and bestowing
it with the bodkin in his pouch again, and all the while his eyes
were fixed upon the grey bundle that lay so still at the stairs'
foot.
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