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"What is it all about?" asks Arthur Dynecourt presently, glancing at the animated group in the middle of the room. And Sir Adrian, hearing his question, explains it to him. "Ah, indeed!" he says. And then, after a scarcely perceptible pause "Who is to be Kate Hardcastle?" "Miss Delmaine," answers Sir Adrian, who is still leaning over that young lady's chair.
Is it some lingering remnant of grace, some vague human shrinking from the crime that has begun to form itself within his busy brain, that now induces Dynecourt to try to dissuade Sir Adrian from his declared intention to search the haunted chamber for the lost bangle? With all his eloquence he seeks to convince him that there the bangle could not have been left, but to no effect.
"Yes; I wish it were removed," responds Florence, with a strange quick shiver. Sir Adrian laughs. "Why, that is one of the old tower's greatest charms," he says. "It belongs to the dark ages, and suggests all sorts of horrible possibilities. This room would be nothing without its mysterious lock." At this moment Dora's eyes turn slowly toward Arthur Dynecourt.
Florence is still pondering these things, while Dora, going swiftly down-stairs, turns into the side hall, glancing into library and rooms as she goes along, plainly in search of something or some one. At last her search is successful; in a small room she finds Arthur Dynecourt apparently reading, as he sits in a large arm-chair, with his eyes fixed intently upon the book in his hand.
"With Sir Adrian with your rival, with the man you hate," she cries, her breath coming in little irrepressible gasps. "Dynecourt, I adjure you to speak the truth, and say what has become of him." "You rave," he says calmly, lifting his eyebrows just a shade, as though in pity for her foolish excitement.
"By the bye, Flo, you are rather uncivil to Arthur Dynecourt, don't you think?" "Uncivil?" "Well yes. That is the word for your behavior toward him, I think. Do you know, I am afraid Sir Adrian has noticed it, and aren't you afraid he will think it rather odd of you rude, I mean considering he is his cousin?" "Not a very favorite cousin, I fancy."
"And more," goes on Dynecourt, exulting in the torture he can see he is inflicting; "though you thrust from you an honorable love for one that lives only in your imagination, I will tell you that Sir Adrian has other views, other intentions. I have reason to know that, when he marries, the name of his bride will not be Florence Delmaine."
In his own mind Arthur can see him now, worn, emaciated, lost to all likeness of anything fair or comely. Have the rats attacked him yet? As this grewsome thought presents itself, Dynecourt rises quickly from his crouching position, and, flying down the steps, does not stop running until he arrives in the corridor below again.
"How distinctly delicious, you mean!" puts in Miss Delmaine. "Sir Adrian, is this chamber anywhere near where I shall sleep?" "Oh, no; you need not be afraid of that!" answers Dynecourt hastily. "I am not afraid," declares the girl saucily. "I have all my life been seeking an adventure of some sort. I am tired of my prosaic existence.
I am afraid I have made myself somewhat officious unintentionally, believe me." "My dear fellow, not at all," declares Sir Adrian hastily, shocked at his own apparent want of courtesy. "I assure you, you mistake. It is all so much to the contrary, that I gratefully accept your offer, and beg you will be Marlow." "But really " begins Arthur Dynecourt.
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