"But come," said Madame de la Fontaine, touching his arm. Again like the weird genius of this strange night she led the way on down the shadowy hall, and paused only when her hand rested upon the knob of the door into the Oak Parlour. "It is here," she said simply.
As Dan reached her side, she opened the door. The light of the candle down the hallway did not penetrate the gloom of the disused room. A musty smell as of cold stagnant air came strong to their nostrils, and Dan felt, as they crossed the threshold together, that he was entering a place where no life had been for a long long time, a place full of dead nameless horrors.
The woman by his side was trembling violently. He put his arm about her to reassure her, and there shot through him a sensation of strange and terrible joy to be with her alone in this darkness and danger. For the moment he was exulting that for her sake he had risked his honour, that for her sake now he was risking life itself. He bent his head to hers.
"No! no!—not here!" she whispered hoarsely, but yet clinging to him with shaking hands. "It is so cold, so dark. I have fear," she murmured.
"It is like a tomb," he said.
"The tomb of my hopes, of my youth," she breathed softly.
"Shall I strike a light?"
"No, no,—no light, I implore you. Ecoute! What is it that I hear?"
"I hear nothing. It is the wind in the Red Oak outside."
"But listen!"