His hair was quite grey now. All the gold had gone from it, just as the youth had passed from his face—his face which was now the colour of ashes, and gashed with agony.
And he lay there, trussed and tied in his material fetters of india-rubber and aluminium. On his head the gleaming metal cap was clamped. He was supine and an old man. All the sap had gone from the fine athlete of a few weeks ago, and the splendid body that had been, was just a shell, a husk.
But the soul looked through the eyes still, tortured but undaunted, in agony but not afraid.
In the lower silence of that deep cellar where Guy suffered there were but two sounds. One was the insistent whisper of the electric fan, the other was the voice which came from Sir William Gouldesbrough as he bent over the recumbent figure—the broken, motionless figure in which, still, brave eyes were set like jewels.
"So now you know! You know it all, you realize, dead man, all that I have done to you, and all that I am going to do. Down here, in this little room, you have thought that you were alone. You have imagined that whatever had happened to you, you were yet alone with the agony of your thoughts, and with God! But you were not! Though you never knew it until now, you never were! Each prayer that you thought you were sending up to the unknown force that rules the world, was caught by me. For weeks I have daily seen into your soul, and laughed at its irremediable pain. I have got your body, and for the first time in the history of the world, your mind, your soul, are mine also."
The voice stopped for a moment. It had become very harsh and dry. It clicked and rang with a metallic sound in this torture-chamber far underground.
And still the bright eyes watched the body of the man who was possessed, very calmly, very bravely.
The horrid voice rose into an insane shriek.
"She is up-stairs now, the girl you presumed to love, the rose of all the roses that you dared to come near, is sitting, laughing as she sees all that you are thinking now, vividly before her in pictures and in words. In a moment I shall be with her, and together we shall mock your agonies, twined in each other's arms."
Perhaps a vault in the dungeons of the Inquisition or in some other place of horror where merciless men have watched the agonies of their brethren, has echoed with pure merriment. Who can say, who can tell?