"Take off your hat, love, but don't bother about anything else just now," said Miss Bellamy.
Then they went upstairs, and then a door was flung open, and there, in the middle of the lighted room, Eleanor saw standing a tall, frail-looking man, who seemed as though he were obliged to steady himself by clinging to the back of a chair, and whose lips were working with nervous excitement.
"Eleanor Murray, there is your father!" said Miss Bellamy, in a voice that was not without a touch of solemnity.
Eleanor staggered forward into the room. Ambrose Murray met her half-way, and caught her in his arms. She fell on his breast in a passion of sobs.
"Oh, papa, papa! why have you kept me from you all this time?" was all she could say.
Miss Bellamy came gently out and shut the door.
[CHAPTER. XII.]
THE STRONG-ROOM.
"No chance of anybody hearing him but the dead folk in the churchyard, and they'll only grin to themselves and take no notice." So muttered Pringle to himself as he stood at the foot of the stairs and listened to Van Duren's cry for help.
And he was right. So long as the doors were kept shut, Van Duren's loudest cries would not penetrate beyond the basement-floor of the old house. In the office above people might, and did, come and go on business, but not the faintest echo of that terrible cry of despair, that was so near and yet so far away, ever reached them.