"There—behind."
He turned. A luminance seemed to come from above, from the unseen heights of the magnificent double staircase. As his eyes grew accustomed to the conditions, he gradually made out the details of the staircase.
"You'd better go and see," the whispering voice commanded.
He dropped the hand and obeyed, creeping up the left wing of the staircase. As he faced about at the half-landing, he saw Helen, in an orange-tinted peignoir, and her hair all down her back, holding a candle. She beckoned to him. He ascended to her.
"Who's there?" she inquired, coldly.
"Mrs. Prockter," he murmured.
"And are you sitting together in the dark?" she inquired, coldly.
The story that the candle had expired seemed feeble in the extreme. And for him the word "cap" was written in letters of fire on the darkness below.
He made no attempt to answer her question.