He pulled himself up.
"Go to bed now if you like, Lawler," he said, rather abruptly. "Come,
Addison."
They regained the hall, and made their way to Valentine. He was sitting by the dining-table in a watchful attitude, and sprang hastily up as they came in.
"My dear doctor," he said, "what a pandemonium! I nearly came to your assistance."
"It's very lucky you didn't, Cresswell," the doctor answered, almost grimly.
"Why?"
"Because if you had you might chance to be a dead man by this time."
Out on the sea, under the streaming clouds that fled before the wind, Julian recalled the strange terseness of that reply, and the perhaps stranger silence that followed it. For Valentine had made no comment, had asked for no explanation. He had simply dropped the subject, and the three men had remained together for a few minutes, constrained and ill at ease. Then the doctor had said:
"Let us go back now to my room."
Valentine and he assented, and got upon their feet to follow him, but when he opened the door there came up from the servants' quarters the half-strangled howling of the mastiffs. Involuntarily Dr. Levillier paused to listen, his hand behind his ear. Then he turned to the young men, and held out his right hand.