"Me?" she asks innocently, but certainly coquettishly. "Oh, Captain
Ringwood"--in a tone of mock injury--"what an unkind speech! Now I know
you look upon me in the light of an ogress, or a witch, or something
equally dreadful. Well, as I have the name of it, I may as well have
the gain of it, and so--I command you to attend me to the 'haunted
chamber.'"
"You order--I obey," says the captain. "'Call and I follow--I follow,
though I die!'" After which quotation he accompanies her toward the
house in the wake of Dora and Sir Adrian, who has been pressed by the
clever widow into her service.
Florence and Arthur Dynecourt follow them, Arthur talking gayly, as
though determined to ignore the fact that he is thoroughly unwelcome to
his companion; Florence, with head erect and haughty footsteps and eyes
carefully averted.
Past the hall, through the corridor, up the staircase, through the
galleries, along more corridors they go, laughing and talking eagerly,
until they come at last to an old and apparently much disused part of
the house.
Traversing more corridors, upon which dust lies thickly, they come at
last to a small iron-bound door that blocks the end of one passage.
"Now we really begin to get near to it," says Sir Adrian encouragingly,
turning, as he always does, when opportunity offers, to address himself
solely to Florence.
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