"How pale you are, Mrs. Talbot?" remarks Sir Adrian suddenly, wheeling
round to look at her more closely. "Has this damp old place really
affected your nerves? Come, let us go down again, and forget in the
sunshine that bloody deeds were ever committed here or elsewhere."
"I am nervous, I confess," responds Dora, in a low tone. "Yes, yes--let
us leave this terrible room forever."
"So be it," says Sir Adrian gayly. "For my part, I feel no desire to
ever re-enter it."
"It is very high art, I suppose," observes Ethel Villiers, glancing
round the walls. "Uncomfortable places always are. It would be quite
a treasure to Lady Betty Trefeld, who raves over the early Britons. It
seems rather thrown away upon us. Captain Ringwood, you look as if you
had been suddenly turned into stone. Let me pass, please."
"It was uncommonly friendly of Ringwood not to have let the door slam,
and so imprisoned us for life," says Sir Adrian, with a laugh. "I am
sure we owe him a debt of gratitude."
"I hope you'll all pay it," laughs Ringwood. "It will be a nice new
experience for you to give a creditor something for once. I never pay my
own debts; but that doesn't count. I feel sure you are all going to give
me something for my services as door-keeper."
"What shall I give you?" asks Ethel coquettishly.
"I'll tell you by and by," he replies, with such an expressive look that
for once the saucy girl has no answer ready, but, blushing crimson,
hurries past him down the stone stairs, where she waits at the bottom
for the others.
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