“It’s a pity to sacrifice her life,” he remarked sympathetically. “She has done us no harm.”
“Fool!” replied the other, with an impatient gesture, looking at him with threatening eyes. “Can’t you see that if she lives she can frustrate all our plans? Even now I believe she knows our secret.”
“She does?” gasped the other breathlessly.
“Yes.”
“But are there no other means of silencing her?”
“No. She must die!”
The man, whose sinister face wore a heavy, determined expression, had drawn a long-bladed knife from its sheath, and it flashed in the light as he held it in his hand. Mansell noticed it, and shuddered.
“I cannot stay and see her murdered,” he cried in horror.
“Very well; if you’re so chicken-hearted, wait outside,” the other replied roughly.
He saw it was useless to intercede for the life of the girl whose beauty he had admired, so obeyed the injunction. Pale and agitated, he waited upon the landing in the darkness.