The thing once done, my first thought, and the natural, if foolish, impulse on which I acted was to take her to my room, hers to follow where I led. The passage beyond the door was dark, but taking no thought of slip or stumble, in a moment I had her up the small staircase which led to the first floor, and through the door at the head of the flight into the long corridor, which, spacious, lofty, and comparatively light--in every way the strangest opposite to the crowded hall below--ran from the well of the great staircase into the depths of the house. By involving her in this upper part of the house, whence escape was impossible, and where prolonged search must inevitably discover her, I was really doing a most foolish thing. But in the event it mattered nothing, for as we reached the corridor, and paused to cast a wary glance down its length this way and that--I, for my part, shaking like an aspen, and I doubt not as white as a sheet--a single footstep rang on the marble floor that edged the matting of the passage, and the next moment the Duke himself, issuing from a doorway no more than five paces away, came plump upon us.
The surprise was so complete that we had no time to move, and we stood as if turned to stone. Yet even then, if I had retained perfect presence of mind, and bethought me that he might not know the girl, and would probably deem her one of his household--a still-room maid or a seamstress--all might have been well. For though he did, in fact, know the girl, having questioned her not half an hour before, it was on me that his eye alighted; and his first words were proof that he suspected nothing.
"Are you better?" he said, pausing with the kindness and consideration that so well became him--nay, that became no other man so well. "I am glad to see that you are about. We shall want you presently. What was it?"
And then, if I had answered him at once, I have no doubt that he would have passed on; but my teeth chattered so pitiably that I could only gape at him; and on that, seeing in a moment that something was wrong, he looked at my companion, and recognised her. I saw his eyes open wide with astonishment, and his mouth grew stern. Then, "But what--what, sir, is this?" he cried. "And what do you----"
He said no more, for as he reached that word the door beside me opened gently, and a man slid round it, looked, saw the Duke, and stood, his mouth agape, a stifled oath on his lips. It was Cassel, his hands shackled.
At this fresh appearance the Duke's astonishment may be imagined, and could scarcely be exceeded. He stared at the door as if he questioned who still remained behind it, or who might be the next to issue from it. But then, seeing, I suppose, something whimsical and bizarre in the situation--which there certainly was, though at the time I was far from discerning it--and being a man who, in all circumstances, retained a natural dignity, he smiled; and recovering himself before any one of us, took a tone between the grave and ironical. "Mr. Cassel?" he said. "Unless my eyes deceive me? The gentleman I saw a few minutes ago?"
"The same," the conspirator answered jauntily; but his anxious eyes roving beside and behind the Duke belied his tone.
"Then, perhaps," my lord answered, taking out his snuff-box, and tapping it with a good-humoured air, "you will see, sir, that your presence here needs some explanation? May I ask how you came here?"
"The devil I know or care, your Grace!" Cassel answered. "Except that I came into your house with no good-will, and if I could have found the door should not have outstayed my welcome."
"I believe it," said my lord drily, "if I believe nothing else. But you have lost the throw. And that being so, may I beg that you will descend again? I am loth to use force in my own house, Mr. Cassel, and to call the servants would prejudice your case. If you are wise, therefore, I think that you will see the wisdom of retiring quietly."