The duke lay down upon his back, looking up at the sinister ruffian with the candle and the dark stone ceiling of his prison.
Then, with an impudent, derisive chuckle Sidney climbed the ladder, and immediately afterwards the stone slab fell into its place with a soft thud.
The duke was alone in the dark!
CHAPTER IX MARY MARRIOTT'S INITIATION
The morning was not so foggy as the last three terrible days had been.
Dull it was even yet—the skies were dark and lowering—but the acrid, choking fog had mercifully disappeared.
But Mary Marriott thought nothing of this change in the weather as she drove down in a hansom cab to the house of James Fabian Rose in the little quiet street behind Westminster Abbey. It was half-past twelve. The great expedition to the slums of the West End was now to start.
Since that extraordinary day upon which her prospects had seemed so hopeless and so forlorn Mary had been in a state of suspended expectation. Suddenly, without any indication of what was to happen, she had been caught out of her drab monotony and taken into the very centre of a great, new pulsating movement. The conclusion of the day upon which she had again failed to achieve a theatrical engagement was incredibly splendid, incredibly wonderful!