Chapter Twenty-five

Lois came to consciousness almost at once, as she thought, though she had been lying on the floor for half an hour before she moved, and, sick and shaking, dragged herself with difficulty to the bed.

She felt ill and shaken and sat with her hands before her eyes trying to shut out that hideous scene. The raised whip----

She lay down on the bed, her face in the crook of her arm, trying to reconstruct from the confusion of her mind a sane and logical explanation, and always her thoughts flew back to Michael Dorn, with his saturnine face and his soul-searching eyes. Why he should weave in and out of her troubled thoughts, she could not fathom, except that she came back to that sure foundation of faith. Who was this other prisoner? What had the countess to do with this experience of hers? Was it true, as Michael Dorn had hinted, that the falling balcony and the motor-car incident were not accidents, but deliberate attempts to kill her?

When the woman brought her supper, Lois was outwardly calm, recognising the futility of questioning her. When she came up to clear away, she brought a small oil lamp and lit it. She pulled down the two ragged blinds before she left, and at the door paused for her good-night message.

“If you want anything, stamp on the floor,” she said. “If you take my tip you won’t send for the doctor, because he’s raving drunk; and don’t take any notice of that woman downstairs, she’s crazy!”

It was not a very cheering farewell. One thing was certain, she was free from interruption for the rest of the night; and she decided to put into operation the plan she had formed.

She had found in her little handbag a small nail file. The slats that prevented the windows opening had been screwed into the sash grooves, and Lois guessed that by breaking off the point of the file she would be able to improvise a screwdriver. The snapping of the file was an easy matter, but when she came to fit the jagged end in the screws, she found both the instrument and her strength insufficient for the purpose. She tried another screw with no better result, and finally gave up her task in despair. The windows could be broken, but they were scarcely a foot wide. And the dogs were below; she heard them growling as she worked.

There was nothing for her to do, nothing to read. She did not even know the time, for her watch had stopped, and she could only judge the hour by the light of the sky.

Pacing up and down the room, her hands behind her, she resolutely refused to be panic-stricken. The blind impulse of panic, which came to her again and again, had made her want to scream aloud. What was Lizzy doing now? And Michael Dorn? Always her thoughts came back to Michael Dorn.

“I wonder if I’m in love with him?” she said aloud, and smiled at the thought.

If she was, then he was the last person she had ever expected to love, and Lizzy would never believe that she had not been fond of him all the time. He would find her. She was sure of that. But suppose he did not? She drew a long sigh. Turning down the light and resting her elbows on the window-sill, she stared out into the darkness. The moon was rising somewhere on the other side of the house. She saw the ghostly light of it turn the dark downs to silver. Then she heard hurried steps in the hall below, and, going back to the table, turned up the light. The lock snapped back and the door was thrust open. It was the doctor, and he was not drunk. He was, in truth, haggardly, tremblingly sober.

“Come out of this!” he jerked, and dragged her from the room down the stairs into the hall. “Go up and put that light out,” he said to some one in the darkness, and the gaunt woman, appearing from nowhere, brushed past her and ran up the stairs.

“What do you want, doctor? Is anything----”

“Shut up!” he hissed. “Have you put that light out?”

“Yes,” said a sulky voice from the stairs. “What is there to be scared about? You’ve been drunk and dreaming.”

“I’ll smash your head if you talk to me like that!” said the man without heat. “I tell you I saw the car coming over the hill. It stopped in front of the house. Do you think I’m blind? You go up to my room and you can see the lights. He got out and came along the wall, then I lost sight of him.”

Lois’ heart so thumped and swelled that she almost choked.

“Where is he now?” asked the woman.

“Shut up.”

Again a dreadful, long silence, broken at last by the faint sound of the howling dogs.

“He’s at the back!”

The doctor still held Lois’ arm in his firm grip, and now he gently shook her.

“If you scream or shout, or do anything, I’ll cut your throat. I mean what I say--do you hear?”

“Why didn’t you leave her upstairs?” growled the woman.

“Because I wanted her here, where I could see her. Find my silk handkerchief; I left it in the study. And bring the irons, I’m not going to take any risks.”

The woman went into the room and came back. Suddenly Lois felt the handkerchief against her mouth.

“Don’t struggle; I’m not going to hurt you, unless you shout. Get the irons.”

“Here!” said the woman’s voice.

Lois felt her wrists gripped and dragged behind her. In another second she was handcuffed.

“Sit down there.” He pushed her into a chair, felt at the gag, and grunted his satisfaction.

“Listen! He’s knocking.”

_Tap-tap-tap!_

Silently the two stepped into the darkness of the front yard and the woman called.

“Who’s there?”

And then came a voice that made the girl half-rise from her chair.

“I want to see the master of this house,” said Michael Dorn.