CHAPTER III THE CRY IN THE NIGHT
The close clutch of the silence lay over the castle like the restless horror that it was. The caressing drowsiness of healthy slumber was never for the hapless Ravenspurs now. They clung round the ingle nook till the last moment; they parted with a sigh and a shudder, knowing that the morrow might find one face missing, one voice silenced for ever.
Marion alone was really cheerful; her smiling face, her gentle courage were as the cool breath of the north wind to the others. But for her, they would have gone mad with the haunting horror long since.
She was one of the last to go. She still sat pensive in the ingle, her hands clasped behind her head, her eyes gazing with fascinated astonishment at Ralph Ravenspur.
In some strange, half-defined fashion it seemed to her that she had seen a face scarred and barred like that before. And in the same vague way the face reminded her of her native India.
It was a strong face, despite the blight that suffering had laid upon it. The lips were firm and straight, the sightless eyes seemed to be seeking for something, hunting as a blind wolf might have done. The long, slim, damp fingers twitched convulsively; feeling upwards and around as if in search of something.
Marion shuddered as she imagined those hooks of steel pressed about her throat, choking the life out of her.
"Where are you going to sleep?" Ravenspur asked abruptly.
"In my old room," Ralph replied. "Nobody need trouble about me. I can find my way about the castle as well as if I had my eyes. After all I have endured, a blanket on the floor will be a couch of down."