She was standing just as she had stood the night before, her face framed by the aperture in the door, and her long slender hands, with their interlocked fingers, resting on the little shelf outside.
And so Burgo began his story, telling her in a condensed form everything, so far as it related to his uncle, Lady Clinton, and himself, all of which is already known to the reader. Of Clara Leslie's name he made no mention, it was not necessary to his purpose that he should do so; neither did he repeat much of what had passed between his uncle and himself in the course of his last brief sojourn in Great Mornington Street. That he was not without his suspicions of foul play in the case of Sir Everett, Miss Roylance, if she chose to do so, might infer from certain of his remarks, but he was especially careful that not so much as the shadow of a definite charge should be formulated by him against Lady Clinton.
"Thank you, Mr. Brabazon," said Dacia, when he ceased speaking. "If my determination to help you to escape had needed any stimulus before, it certainly does not after what you have told me. As I gather from your narrative, the one great object to which you still adhere is to obtain access to your uncle?"
"That is so, most certainly."
"Then--pardon my saying so--even should your--or our--plan of escape prove successful, you will only, as it seems to me, be in precisely the same position as before you were brought here, that is to say, you will not be a step nearer the attainment of your object."
"I admit it--sorrowfully. But the recovery of my liberty will give me one advantage--it will enable me to devise and, as I trust, carry into effect some other scheme for rescuing my uncle from the clutches of that----" He stopped abruptly, and bit his lip.
Miss Roylance smiled. "You need not mince your phrases, as far as I am concerned, where Lady Clinton is in question," she said.
"You don't like her ladyship?" he queried, with an ambiguous smile.
"I hate her!" was Dacia's emphatic reply, as her dark eyebrows came together for a moment. "Any milder term would be a euphemism." Then her face broke into a smile. "And yet, you must know, Mr. Brabazon, that to all outward seeming, she and I are the best of friends. But that is the way we women are made."
"In your note you told me that the illness which carried off Colonel Innes, like my uncle's, was a lingering one."