"The child? What have you done with the child? It was you who carried him off, wasn't it?"
With a sudden movement they seized her arms; and while one kept her covered with his revolver, the other set about the task of searching her. But an imperious voice checked them:
"Stop that. I'll do it myself."
A third personage whom Dorothy had not perceived, stepped out from the wall where enormous roots of ivy had concealed him.... D'Estreicher!
For all that he was still rigged out in his disguise of a Russian soldier, he was no longer the same man. Again she found him the d'Estreicher of Roborey and Hillocks Manor. He had resumed his arrogant air and his wicked expression, and did not try to conceal his slight limp. Now that his hair and beard were shaved off, she observed the flatness of the back of his head and the apelike development of his jaw.
He stood a long while without speaking. Was he tasting the joy of triumph? One would have said rather that he felt a certain discomfort in the presence of his victim, or at least that he was hesitating in his attack. He walked up and down, his hands behind his back, stopped, then walked up and down again.
He asked her:
"Have you any weapon?"
"None," she declared.