"So this is the reason we are waked up in the middle of the night," Forrest remarked, with a smile which somehow or other seemed to lose its suggestiveness. "A little affair of this sort, eh, Mr. Cecil? Why don't you teach the young lady a simpler way of summoning you than by that infernal bell?"
Still Kate did not reply. She was standing with her back to the oak table in the centre of the hall, and the men, who were both watching her covertly, were conscious of a certain significance in her attitude. Her black hair was tossed all over her face; from its tangled web her eyes seemed to gleam with a steady inimical gaze. Her dress of dark red stuff was splashed in places with the salt water, and her feet were soaking. With her left hand she clasped the table; her right seemed hidden in the folds of her skirt.
"What do you want, Kate?" Cecil asked at last. "What do you mean by coming here like this? If you want to see me you know how, without arousing the whole household at this time of night."
"You are not fool enough," Kate said calmly, "to imagine that I came to-night to listen to your lies. I came to know whom it is that you are keeping hidden away in the smugglers' room."
Neither man answered. They looked at one another, and Cecil's face grew once more as pale as death.
"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "What rubbish is this you are talking, Kate?" he added, in a sharper tone. "There is no one there that I know of."
"You lie," she answered calmly. "You lie, as you always do whenever it answers your purpose. Only an hour ago I lay upon the turf in the plantation there, and I heard a man moaning down in the store-room. Now tell me the truth, Cecil de la Borne. I do not wish to bring any harm upon you, although God knows you deserve it, but if you do not bring me the man whom you have down there, and set him free before my eyes at once, I'll bring half the village up to the mound there and dig him out."
Forrest stepped forward. His manner was suave and his tone was smooth, but there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes.
"This is rather absurd, Cecil," he said. "I do not know whom this young lady is, but I feel sure that she will listen to reason. There is no one down in the smugglers' store-room. If she heard anything, it was probably the rabbits."
"Lies!" Kate answered calmly. "You are another of the breed; I can see it in your face. I would not trust the word of either of you."