LXII
“What time is it?” asked Harry.
He had not spoken for two hours, but had sat, clasping his knees, his head thrust forward, engaged with his wild thoughts.
“Lend me the lantern.”
She passed the lamp back to him.
“A quarter to seven,” she said. “Harry, I feel so hungry.”
“Do you?” he asked in surprise. “I don’t feel hungry, I feel—I don’t know.”
Presently he spoke again.
“How did we get here?” he asked. “I know the roof fell in, but how did we come into this beastly place?”
“You’ve been very ill,” she said gently. “You came here whilst you were sick.”
“Did I really?” He seemed amazed at her reply and did not speak again for fully five minutes. “I seem to remember now that I have been ill. I sleep so badly and have such horrible dreams. Poor old Dick was always ragging me about my patent medicines… queer bird, old Dick, but one of the very best.”
He spoke so heartily, with such enthusiasm, that her heart ached for some unknown reason.
“We shall have to get out of here,” he said.
She did not answer him.
For the tenth time he turned on the light of his lamp and examined the roof.
“It is vaulted,” he muttered. “I hope nothing happens here.”
She felt him shivering.
“Nothing is going to happen, Harry,” she said soothingly. “We’re going to get out and we’re going to have a big dinner to celebrate our rescue.”
He chuckled softly.
“We shall never get out of here,” he said cheerfully. “This is the end of the House of Chelford.” He thought a while. “By Jove, no! Of course, Dick will inherit the estate. Isn’t it queer, Leslie, that he never wanted me to marry? That’s the only thing about Dick I cannot understand, because he’s not a jealous man or an envious man, but a good, big-hearted fellow—and yet he didn’t want me to marry. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
“I don’t think you’re right, Harry,” she temporized. “Only he didn’t want you to marry the wrong woman.”
“But he didn’t want me to marry you,” said Harry in a tone of indignation. “And if there’s a better girl in the world than you, I’d like to find her! Of course, I’m a terrible slacker, but…”
“Hullo!”
The booming voice seemed to come from somebody in the chamber. She felt him start, and again his frail body quavered in a fit of trembling.
“What was that?” he asked huskily.
“Hullo!”
The voice came again. She seized the lamp from his hand, ran out of the cavern to the place where she had seen daylight.
“Is that you, Dick?” she called at the top of her voice, and heard a husky “Thank God!”
And then from the Cold Room came a burst of demoniacal laughter. There was yet the gravest danger of all to overcome. She was alone with a madman!