第113章

Opposite Morven House was a building which had at one time been the stables to it, but was now part of a brewery; a high wall shut it off from the street; it was dinner-time with the humbler people of the town, and there was not a soul visible, when Donal put the key in the lock of the front door, opened it, and went in: he had timed his entrance so, desiring to avoid idle curiosity, and bring no gathering feet about the house. Almost on tiptoe he entered the lofty hall, high above the first story. The dust lay thick on a large marble table--but what was that?--a streak across it, brushed sharply through the middle of the dust! It was strange! But he would not wait to speculate on the agent! The room to which the earl had directed him was on the first floor, and he ascended to it at once--by the great oak staircase which went up the sides of the hall.

The house had not been dismantled, although things had at different times been taken from it, and when Donal opened a leaf of shutter, he saw tables and chairs and cabinets inlaid with silver and ivory.

The room looked stately, but everything was deep in dust; carpets and curtains were thick with the deserted sepulchres of moths; and the air somehow suggested a tomb: Donal thought of the tombs of the kings of Egypt before ravaging conquerors broke into them, when they were yet full of all such gorgeous furniture as great kings desired, against the time when the souls should return to reanimate the bodies so carefully spiced and stored to welcome them, and the great kings would be themselves again, with the added wisdom of the dead and judged. Conscious of a curious timidity, feeling a kind of awesomeness about every form in the room, he stepped softly to the bureau, applied its key, and following carefully the directions the earl had given him, for the lock was Italian, with more than one quip and crank and wanton wile about it, succeeded in opening it. He had no difficulty in finding its secret place, nor the packet concealed in it; but just as he laid his hands on it, he was aware of a swift passage along the floor without, past the door of the room, and apparently up the next stair. There was nothing he could distinguish as footsteps, or as the rustle of a dress; it seemed as if he had heard but a disembodied motion! He darted to the door, which he had by habit closed behind him, and opened it noiselessly.

The stairs above as below were covered with thick carpet: any light human foot might pass without a sound; only haste would murmur the secret to the troubled air.

He turned, replaced the packet, and closed the bureau. If there was any one in the house, he must know it, and who could tell what might follow! It was the merest ghost of a sound he had heard, but he must go after it! Some intruder might be using the earl's house for his own purposes!

Going softly up, he paused at the top of the second stair, and looked around him. An iron-clenched door stood nearly opposite the head of it; and at the farther end of a long passage, on whose sides were several closed doors, was one partly open. From that direction came the sound of a little movement, and then of low voices--one surely that of a woman! It flashed upon him that this must be the trysting-place of Eppy and Forgue. Fearing discovery before he should have gathered his wits, he stepped quietly across the passage to the door opposite, opened it, not without a little noise, and went in.

It was a strange-looking chamber he had entered--that, doubtless, once occupied by the ogre--The Reid Etin. Even in the bewilderment of the moment, the tale he had just heard was so present to him that he cast his eyes around, and noted several things to confirm the conclusion. But the next instant came from below what sounded like a thundering knock at the street door--a single knock, loud and fierce--possibly a mere runaway's knock. The start it gave Donal set his heart shaking in his bosom.

Almost with it came a little cry, and the sound of a door pulled open. Then he heard a hurried, yet carefully soft step, which went down the stair.

"Now is my time!" said Donal to himself. "She is alone!"

He came out, and went along the passage. The door at the end of it was open, and Eppy stood in it. She saw him coming, and gazed with widespread eyes of terror, as if it were The Reid Etin himself--waked, and coming to devour her. As he came, her blue eyes opened wider, and seemed to fix in their orbits; just as her name was on his lips, she dropped with a sharp moan. He caught her up, and hurried with her down the stair.