Her voice halted and trembled into silence and she stood listening with every nerve strained. A dull jarring crash had sounded from below accompanied by the muffled but harsh tones of a man's voice raised in anger or expostulation.
Hastily disposing of her work she extinguished the light and groping her way to the door, opened it. The voice had sunk to an indistinguishable rumble, and mingled with it was a murmur in a higher, clearer tone which she had no difficulty in recognizing as that of Mrs. Atterbury.
The girl hesitated, then crept to the head of the stairs. The house was in darkness save for a narrow shaft of light which glowed from the open door of the music room. Clinging to the banisters and keeping well in shadow, Betty made her way down the staircase and from behind the shelter of the newel post she peered into the room.
Jack Wolvert was crouched half over the table, both fists full of crumpled papers and his dark face, half-defiant, half-cringing, leered up at his hostess who stood before him drawn up to her full height in imperious disdain.
"You're crazy!" he ejaculated. "What's the good of playing a waiting game? Come out in the open and make one big bluff, that's my idea."
"You'll find it decidedly dangerous, my man, to execute your ideas without my sanction." Mrs. Atterbury's quiet tones dominated his blustering whine. "Remember, I am master and I will not brook any rebellion against my authority. I might remind you that the last time you took matters into your own hands the result was unfortunate."
"Ah-h!" The sound which issued from his lips was between a snarl and a groan, and Betty saw his whole body quiver as he cowered back. Mrs. Atterbury advanced a step and her cameo-like face suddenly hardened.
"We're all in this for life or death. If one succeeds, all succeed; if one fails, he fails alone. That was my rule, but once I broke it for you. Hereafter you fare with the rest. You have your uses, I admit, but no one is indispensable to me. You know what happened to the Comet; remember her luck when you are tempted to play a lone hand, my friend."
Betty waited to hear no more, but turned and fled silently up the stair, her heart beating tumultuously. The level unemotional voice of Mrs. Atterbury had not raised in pitch or increased in volume, yet there had been something far more sinister in its measured utterance than any display of ungoverned wrath could have evidenced.
The girl sank trembling upon her couch and for the first time a vision came to her of her own possible fate should the extent of her knowledge be even suspected by the ruthless woman downstairs. She had learned from the cipher letter of the retribution which had overtaken "The Comet," and once again the stark face of Breckinridge rose before her, his sightless eyes fixed on hers in mute warning.