Kneeling by Barbara's side he raised her to a sitting posture, and passing his left arm around her rested her head upon his shoulder.
"Dearest Barbara, what has frightened you?" he asked, observing that her eyes were opening. It was the first time he had addressed her by her Christian name; the word had escaped him quite involuntarily. "What has frightened you?" he repeated.
"That!" she said.
Like a timid child she clung to him, and indicating as the cause of her fear the life-size portrait of a man hanging upon the wall,—a portrait scarcely discernible in the dim light.
"Take me away," she murmured faintly. "There is something strange in the atmosphere of this room, something that I can't understand, something that makes me fear. Take me away."
As she seemed unable of herself to rise, Paul raised her light form in his arms and carried her down the secret stairway, through the bedchamber, past the wondering Lambro and his consort, back again into the dining-hall whence she had first set out.
She neither blushed nor resisted at finding herself in his arms, apparently not giving the matter a thought. Her fear overpowered every other emotion.
"Lambro," she asked, when somewhat revived by a stimulant administered by Jacintha. "There is a man's portrait on the wall of that room. Whose?"
"The Master's."
"The Master's?" she echoed in a tone of dismay. "Have I been living all this time in the house of my enemy?"