Even as I put my hand to the door she vanished into the back of the house. I heard the sound of an engine starting, and rushed out to see if I had even now been outwitted. The garrison was driving out hatless and coatless, stripped of all honours of war; in the driving-seat sat my friend the bearded priest of the Orthodox Church, his beard somewhat awry. Miss Draper was beside him; there was no one else.
I returned to the hall—where the Seraph was sleeping upright against the wall—opened the door and entered a darkened room. As my eyes grew accustomed to the subdued light, I traced the outline of a window, and drew back the curtains. The sun flooded in, and showed me that I stood in a bedroom. A table with an untasted meal stood against one wall; by the other was a camp bedstead. At length on the bed, fully dressed but blindfolded, gagged, and bound hand and foot, lay Sylvia Roden.
I cut the cords, tore away the bandages, and watched her rise stiffly to her feet. Then I shut the door and stood awkwardly at the window, while she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
It was soon over, but she was the better for it. I watched her drink three tumblers of water and seize a crust of dry bread. It appeared that she had conducted a hunger-strike of her own for the last twenty-four hours; and I think she looked it. Her face was white with the whiteness of a person who has been long confined in a small, dark room. A bruise over one temple showed that her captors had had to deal with a woman of metal, and her wrists were chafed and cut with the pressure of the cords. Worst of all was her change of spirit; the voice had lost its proud ring of assurance, the dark eyes were frightened. Sylvia Roden was almost broken.
"You didn't expect to see me, Sylvia," I said, as I buttered the stale crusts to make them less unappetizing.
She shook her head without answering.
"Did you think no one was ever coming?"
She looked at me still with the frightened expression in her eyes.
"No."
The uncertainty of her tone made me wonder whom she had been expecting. My question was answered before I could ask it.