"Well, if it distresses you, consider I haven't gone," says Sir Adrian lightly.
"That is right," rejoins Arthur, still with his keen eyes fixed upon his cousin. "I knew you would abandon that foolish intention. I certainly shall consider you haven't gone."
They are at the hall door as these words pass Arthur's lips, and there they separate, Sir Adrian leaving him with a smile, and going away up the large hall whistling gayly.
When he has turned one corner, Arthur goes quickly after him, not with the intention of overtaking him, but of keeping him in view. Stealthily he follows, as though fearful of being seen.
There is no servant within sight. No friend comes across Sir Adrian's path. All is silent. The old house seems wrapped in slumber. Above, the pretty guests in their dainty tea-gowns are sipping Bohea and prattling scandal; below, the domestics are occupied in their household affairs.
Arthur, watching carefully, sees Sir Adrian go quickly up the broad front staircase, after which he turns aside, and, as though filled with guilty fear, rushes through one passage and another, until he arrives in the corridor that belongs to the servants' quarters.
Coming to a certain door, he opens it, not without some difficulty, and, moving into the dark landing that lies beyond it, looks around. To any casual observer it might seem strange that some of the cobwebs in this apparently long-forgotten place have lately been brushed away, as by a figure ascending or descending the gloomy staircase. To Arthur these signs bring no surprise, which proves that he, perhaps, has the best right to know whose figure brushed them aside.
Hurrying up the stairs, after closing the door carefully and noiselessly behind him, he reaches, after considerable mountings of what seem to be interminable steps, the upper door he had opened on the day they had visited the haunted chamber, when Ringwood and he had had a passage-at-arms about his curiosity.
Now he stands breathing heavily outside this door, wrapped in the dismal darkness of the staircase, listening intently, as it were, for the coming of a footstep.
In the meantime, Sir Adrian, not dissuaded from his determination to search the tower for the missing bangle, runs gayly up the grand staircase, traverses the corridors and galleries, and finally comes to the first of the iron-bound doors. Opening it, he stands upon the landing that leads to the other door by means of the small stone staircase. Here he pauses.
Is it some vague shadowy sense of danger that makes him stand now as though hesitating? A quick shiver rune through his veins.