The hall was square and of spacious dimensions, with a gallery encircling the second floor landing, from which rare tapestries were hung. The leaping flames of the hearth played upon their soft, mellow hues and glancing off in darting rays from the brass andirons, turned the dull brown of the leather wall paneling into burnished gold.
Betty Shaw mechanically noted the general effect as she followed her surly guide. There was little surprise and no curiosity in her gaze, which had flown straight to the door opposite the hearth. As she reached the foot of the stairs this door was flung violently open, and a man sprang forward, confronting her employer.
"Good God, where have you been?" he demanded, his voice grating harshly with anxiety. "'Ranza has been trying to locate you all the afternoon. She saw him, but he has broken! He's going to—"
No countering exclamation from the woman had interrupted him, yet he paused with a strangling gasp, as if a hand had been laid suddenly upon his throat.
Betty glanced over her shoulder. Mrs. Atterbury stood silently drawn up to her full height regarding the intruder with eyes which blazed from a face that might well have given pause. The impassivity which had masked it was gone, the brows were drawn and knotted and the lips curled back in a distortion of silent rage so that her strong, white teeth gleamed menacingly in the firelight. The girl caught one swift glimpse of the man who cringed in the doorway, then turned and fairly fled up the stair.
The hall was dimly lighted but a rosy glow came from an opened door around a turning, and approaching, Betty found herself in a veritable bower of a room, spacious but cozy, with flowered chintz draperies and soft, rose-shaded lamps.
"If you want the maid, Miss, there's the bell." Welch had deposited her bags beside the dressing-table, and was again surveying her with his curiously intent, lowering gaze. "Should you be liking a cup of tea, now,—"
"Thank you. I shall require nothing before dinner." Her quiet tone was in itself a dismissal, yet the man still lingered as if on the point of further speech. Before her steady eyes, however, his own shifted and fell, and turning, he shambled from the room.
Betty waited until his stealthy, cat-like footsteps had passed well down the hall, then closed her door softly and began a minute examination of her apartment. It faced the side of the house, with two long French windows opening on a narrow balcony. A door in each wall led presumably to connecting rooms, but upon examination the first proved to be fastened, evidently by a bolt on the farther side, for the keyhole was plugged with a hard substance resembling sealing wax. The opposite door disclosed a well-appointed bathroom, with no opening other than a ventilator, high up in the wall.
Completing her simple preparations for dinner, the girl sank in a low chair before the glowing coals in the English grate and chin in hand, lost herself in a reverie. The eager, childishly trustful expression had vanished when she found herself alone and in its place had crept a hardened, crafty look which robbed her face of its youthful charm. The scar leaped again into prominence, and seemed to throb as if its clutching fingers were tightening in a relentless grip, and in her somber eyes abiding passion brooded.