Another minute, and the latter felt his shoulder rudely seized. He wheeled round instanter. The man he had pushed out of his path was at his side, his features distorted with rage.
“Unmannerly cub!” he cried, “how dare you thrust yourself against me?”
“You are quite able to frame the explanation if you require one, and to comprehend my refusal to make any apology,” returned Hal, with calmness. “Let me also counsel you not to repeat the offence of which you have been guilty, or the consequences, as now, may not terminate in a simple collision.”
He moved on, as the excited individual exclaimed—
“But for that fair creature on your arm, I would have caned you soundly, you insolent puppy.”
Hal’s lip curled contemptuously; he refrained from replying to the threat, and left the man to resent his conduct in any shape he pleased.
They were now before the open dooorway, No. 10, and followed the messenger up the worn stone steps that looked as though water was to them a fable and grease their daily food.
By the aid of the iron banisters and Hal’s arm, Flora, with beating heart, reached the second flight, and saw the messenger who had preceded them halting in the stone corridor before a door.
Upon it was painted the figure 5.
This, then, was 5, in 10, and within the room which that painted door guarded, was her father, a prisoner.