Meeting her eyes
he says his finger on his lips to caution her to silence, and then, when
passing by her, whispers:
"Meet me in half an hour in the lower gallery."
Bowing her acquiescence in this arrangement, fearing indeed to refuse,
Dora follows the others from the haunted chamber.
At the foot of the small stone staircase--before they go through the
first iron-bound door that leads to the corridor without--they find
Ethel Villiers awaiting them. She had been looking round her in the
dimly lighted stone passage, and has discovered another door fixed
mysteriously in a corner, that had excited her curiosity.
"Where does this lead to, Sir Adrian?" she asks now, pointing to it.
"Oh, that is an old door connected with another passage that leads by
a dark and wearying staircase to the servants' corridor beneath! I am
afraid you won't be able to open it, as it is rusty with age and disuse.
The servants would as soon think of coming up here as they would of
making an appointment with the Evil One; so it has not been opened for
years."
"Perhaps I can manage it," says Arthur Dynecourt, trying with all his
might to force the ancient lock to yield to him. At length his efforts
are crowned with success; the door flies creakingly open, and a cloud of
dust uprising covers them like a mist.
"Ah!" exclaims Ethel, recoiling; but Arthur, stooping forward, carefully
examines the dark staircase that lies before him wrapped in impenetrable
gloom.
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