The house was silent. The Beestons, brother and sister, either had not yet come down or were already in the dining-room. It seemed to Bab she heard remotely in that stillness a sustained murmur of voices. It was as if somewhere behind the closed doors of that house someone spoke, his speech broken and disjointed. But the important thing for the moment was that the way was clear. One last swift look Bab threw about her; then, her hand on the rail, she darted swiftly, silently, down the stairway. A moment later she had almost reached the door.
"Where are you going?" asked a voice.
It was Beeston. He had been sitting there all the time on watch. As Bab, a gasp escaping her, shrank back guiltily, the man's gnarled hands tightened themselves on the arms of the chair in which he sat, and he lurched heavily to his feet. She had never seen his face so menacing. His brows twitched as he gleamed at her from under them, and she saw his jaws work dryly together. His voice had not raised itself when he spoke, but low, restrained, it rang like a trumpet.
"Going, were you—running away! Is that it?" A mirthless laugh, a sneer, left him. "Well, you're not going!"
His stick thumping the hardwood floor like a pavior's maul, he hobbled swiftly toward the door. Then, when he had interposed himself between it and Bab, he halted. His face, she saw, had no kindliness for her, but in it, instead, was a look of fierce determination—the will of a remorseless, masterful man.
"I've heard what happened this evening," he snarled as Bab stared at him in silence. "I learned it a while ago. The business got away from me. That fellow Lloyd, my son-in-law, I warned long ago not to interfere with you; but I didn't think my daughter would dare oppose me. Never mind about that! What do I care who you are? You could be a drab out of the gutter for all I'm concerned. There's only one person in the world I care about—that's David! What he wants I want. That's what I'm here for; that's what my money's for! Listen, my girl; David wants you! D'ye hear me? It's you he wants and you he's going to have! You're going to marry him—do you understand?"
He had drawn close to her, his murky eyes staring into the depths of hers, and Bab felt herself grow cold. But she did not give in. Now that she had made up her mind, in her resolution she might indeed have been a Beeston.
"No, I can't do that," she said.
Beeston threw her a thunderous look.
"What's that you say?"