"You are not a very accomplished courtier, Mr. Jack Hampton," she said, withdrawing her hand.
Jack would have protested. He was rapidly falling under the spell of her charm. But she halted him with an imperious gesture.
"We are wasting precious time," she said. "Come." Then, turning to Donna Ana, she said sharply: "You will stay here until I return. And if you betray me—" Again she made a threatening gesture, and again the old duenna cowered. Thereupon, the girl hastened from the room and Jack followed.
Up the spiral stone stairway of the tower ran Rafaela, passing the first landing where burned an electric light. Jack was close at her heels. At length they reached the top landing, and stood before the single door there. It was of stout oak, heavy and ponderous.
"This is your father's room," whispered Rafaela.
So near to a successful conclusion of his adventure, Jack's heart beat so rapidly that once again he experienced that sensation of suffocation which had seized him on landing from the airplane.
He tried the door knob. The barrier was locked.
"Locked," he whispered. "What shall we do?"
In the dim light on the landing, they stared at each other in dismay. Here was a contingency which had occurred to neither.
The whispering, the careful trying of the door, the sound of their footsteps—these had aroused Mr. Hampton from his reading on the other side of the door.