It was a nice room, but to one in Agravaine's state of
suppressed suspicion a trifle too solidly upholstered. The door was of
the thickest oak, studded with iron nails. Iron bars formed a neat
pattern across the only window.
Hardly had Agravaine observed these things when the door opened, and
before him stood the damsel Yvonne, pale of face and panting for
breath.
She leaned against the doorpost and gulped.
'Fly!' she whispered.
Reader, if you had come to spend the night in the lonely castle of a
perfect stranger with a shifty eye and a rogues' gallery smile, and on
retiring to your room had found the door kick-proof and the window
barred, and if, immediately after your discovery of these phenomena, a
white-faced young lady had plunged in upon you and urged you to
immediate flight, wouldn't that jar you?
It jarred Agravaine.
'Eh?' he cried.
'Fly! Fly, Sir Knight.'
Another footstep sounded in the passage. The damsel gave a startled
look over her shoulder.
'And what's all this?'
Earl Dorm appeared in the dim-lit corridor. His voice had a nasty
tinkle in it.
'Your--your daughter,' said Agravaine, hurriedly, 'was just telling me
that breakfast would--'
The sentence remained unfinished. A sudden movement of the earl's hand,
and the great door banged in his face.
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