She does not reply, for they are hurrying out of the room. They are in the hall now, and both Hector and Evie Ravensdale have seized their hats. But the next moment the duke has slipped a loaded revolver into his pocket, and handed another to his friend.
“Take this,” is all he says. “You may want it.”
There is a four-wheeler at the door. They all three get in quickly. As Rita does so she gives the order, “Whitechapel. Quick,” she adds, “and you shall be paid well!”
The cab-horse trots swiftly along. The hope of a substantial fare has given the cabby wings. No well-bred brougham horse could go quicker. He flies along does that old cab-horse.
On the outskirts of Whitechapel Rita calls a halt. “We must get out here,” she observes. “Mr. D’Estrange, please give the cabman a sovereign, and tell him to wait.”
He obeys her. He can trust her, can Hector D’Estrange. Ever since the day when, at Evie Ravensdale’s request, he had appointed her as his own and his mother’s secretary, Rita Vernon has served him with a fidelity and painstaking exactitude of which he knows no parallel. She leads the way through dark, uninviting streets. She knows the locality well. She learnt it years ago, before Evie Ravensdale came there to save her from a doom far more terrible than death. She had declared then that she would willingly die for him. The same feeling animates her now. For Evie Ravensdale Rita Vernon would deem it a happiness to die.
They have passed through courts and filthy alleys, through streets well and ill-lighted. Very few people are about. Only a policeman or two on their beats pass them as they move along. Now they are turning into a sort of crescent or half square, with houses superior to those of the localities they have traversed. As they do so Rita turns to the two men following her, and pointing to a house at the further end, exclaims, “There!”
There are no lights in the windows; the place is silent and dark.
“How shall we get in?” asks the duke.
There is a bitter smile on Rita’s face as she replies.