“And is my self-control nothing?” he asked, without moving his hands from his face.

“Yours?  I don’t see any exercise of yours.  Circumstances have put us at your mercy, you are rich and fortunate, and as insolent as you choose to be.  Self-control?  I don’t see any evidence of it.”

“No?” he said, and turning, looked at her with a violence that might have set her on the right track.  Under his eyes she looked down and probably in the instant forgot all that she had been saying and feeling, for when he added:  “I love you,” her hands moved toward his, and she made no resistance when he took her in his arms.

VII

McVay was left so long at the piano that he finally resorted to a series of discords in order to recall himself to Holland’s mind.  His existence, if he had only realised the fact, was so completely forgotten that he might have made his escape with a good half hour to spare before either of the others appreciated that the music had ceased.  Not knowing this, however, he did not dare stop his playing for an instant, until sheer physical fatigue interfered.  It was at this point that the discords began, and brought Geoffrey into the hall.

The disposal of McVay for the night was a question to which Geoffrey had given a great deal of thought.  The cedar closet presented itself as a safe prison, but in the face of McVay’s repeated assertions that the air had barely sufficed to support him during his former occupancy, it looked like murder to insist.  Geoffrey finally, when bed-time came, locked him in a dressing-room off his own room.  The window—­the room was on the third floor—­gave on empty space, and against the only door he placed his own bed, so that escape seemed tolerably difficult.

And to all other precautions, Geoffrey added his own wakefulness, although toward morning weariness triumphed over excitement and he fell asleep.

He was waked by an insistent knocking at his door, and he heard his name called by Cecilia.  He sprang up and found her standing in the hall.  She was wrapped in her sable coat, but shivering from cold or fear.

“There is some one getting into the house.  I heard a window open and steps on the piazza, below my room.  What can it be?”

Geoffrey flung himself past her.  The instinct of the hunter joined to the obstinacy of his nature maddened him at the notion of McVay’s escape.  On the opposite side of the house there was a piazza and on the roof of this a neighbouring window opened.  He threw it back and climbed out.

The snow had stopped, and the moon was shining, paling a little before the approaching dawn.  Geoffrey could see a figure stealing quickly across the snow.  There was no question of its identity.  His revolver, which he had snatched from under his pillow and brought with him, he at once levelled on the vanishing form; his finger was on the trigger, when he felt a hand on his arm.