“Hush—come on.”
“Ada—Ada,” cried Albert, pausing on the staircase, with the hope of hearing some answering sound, and more alarmed at the dead silence which prevailed in the house, than had he encountered noise, tumult, and evident danger.
“What the devil is he shouting in that way for?” muttered Britton.
“Hush—hush,” said Learmont. “Some cursed chance has brought him here. Let us descend, and, as you pass him, Britton—you understand me?”
“I do,“ said Britton. “Come on, then. Where’s your light.”
“We need none. I would not be seen by him. What you have to do, you can easily do in the dark—kill him or maim him. I care not which.”
“Well, squire,” muttered Britton, “you certainly do leave me all the work to do: but when one’s hands in, it ain’t much matter.”
Albert, in the excitement of his feelings, when he got as high as the second floor, paused, uncertain whether or not he had arrived on a level with the room of which the window had been broken so violently, and he stood for several minutes calling upon Ada, his voice, each time that he uttered her name, betraying the great anxiety which he laboured under, and which was momentarily increasing.
Suddenly, then, a voice answered him faintly, and guided by the sound, Albert pushed against a door, which, yielding to his touch, presented a dark room, into which he stepped, saying,—
“Whoever you are here, for Heaven’s sake, let me have a light.”