She uttered an incredulous exclamation and drew back.
“Is this the truth? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“He forbade me. You were not to know.”
Close above them, in the shrubbery, Stilling warbled:
“
Nita, Juanita,
Ask thy soul if we must part!
”
Wrayford held her by both arms. “Understand this—if he comes in, he’ll find us. And if there’s a row you’ll lose your boy.”
She seemed not to hear him. “You—you—you—he’ll kill you!” she exclaimed.
Wrayford laughed impatiently and released her, and she stood shrinking against the wall, her hands pressed to her breast. Wrayford straightened himself and she felt that he was listening intently. Then he dropped to his knees and laid his hands against the boards of the sliding floor. It yielded at once, as if with a kind of evil alacrity; and at their feet they saw, under the motionless solid night, another darker night that moved and shimmered. Wrayford threw himself back against the opposite wall, behind the door.
A key rattled in the lock, and after a moment’s fumbling the door swung open. Wrayford and Isabel saw a man’s black bulk against the obscurity. It moved a step, lurched forward, and vanished out of sight. From the depths beneath them there came a splash and a long cry.
“Go! go!” Wrayford cried out, feeling blindly for Isabel in the blackness.