“Come on,” she says excitedly. “I am sure I can find them. They’ll be in the best room. Follow me.”
She goes up the stairs quietly, her companions as noiselessly following. On reaching the landing she turns down a passage to the right, and comes to a halt opposite a door.
“Listen,” she says in a low tone. “You two should know that voice.”
But she has no time to say more. Pale with fury, with murder in his eyes, Hector D’Estrange has burst open the door. A flood of light almost blinds him as he enters, but through it all he sees the mother that he loves.
Speranza de Lara is stretched on a sofa. Her ankles are still tightly secured, her wrists likewise. Around her, like a cloak of gold, falls her lovely hair. There is a mad, wild look in her eyes terrible to behold, but her lips are mute and speechless, for she is gagged. And beside her stands that monster, that petted roué of Society, that “fiend in human shape,”—the Earl of Westray.
There is a loud cry as a shot rings through the silent house.
END OF BOOK I.
