Then he had no doubt, and dashed on, up to the third flight, till he came to the topmost landing.
Here he was confronted by a door, and he groaned within himself. He was living in some awful nightmare at which a door faced him at every turn.
He emptied his revolver in the lock and hurled himself in frenzy against this further obstruction; it gave way, and he tottered into the room, the lights of which for a moment dazzled him.
His half-blinded eyes were greeted by the sight which he had dreaded ever since he had come to the farm on the hill.
Kathleen was fighting desperately, and for life, with Melun.
With a great cry Westerham leapt forward, but he was too late to exercise that vengeance which had now full possession of his soul.
Melun flung Kathleen to one side, and for a second turned his pallid face, in which his eyes were burning like a madman's, full on Westerham as he dashed on him.
Then without a sound he leapt aside, and vaulting on to the sill of the open window, jumped out.
Instinctively Westerham knew what was coming, and catching Kathleen to him, held her head against his breast, stopping her ears with his hands. As his palms closed upon them his heart grew sick as he remembered the dreadful thing which had come to Downing Street earlier in the day.
But to his unutterable joy—joy which was almost a shock—his hands told him that Melun's hideous warning had been but a brutal hoax.