“She would go by the cliffs,” Olga said.

“Yes, I know.  But Mrs. Briggs is with her.  We had better motor,” said Nick.

So they set off again along the glaring road.

It began to seem like a nightmare to Olga.  She drove as one pursued by horrors unspeakable.  Once or twice Nick spoke to her, and she knew that she obeyed his instructions, though what they were she could never afterwards remember.  On and on they went, flying like cloud-shadows on a windy day, yet—­so it seemed to Olga—­drawing no nearer to their goal, until quite suddenly she found herself staring at the great Priory gate-posts with their huge stone balls while Nick wrestled with the fastenings of the gates.

They opened before her, and she drove slowly through with a curious sensation as of entering an unknown country, though she had known the Priory grounds from childhood.  Nick clambered in beside her as she went, and then they were off again running swiftly up the long drive with its double line of yews to the house.

Memory awoke within her then, and she called to mind that day that seemed so long ago when she had encountered Violet, superbly confident, conquering the rebellious Pluto.  The cry of a gull came to her now as then, and it sounded like a cry of pain.

They came within sight of the old grey walls.  Silent and tragic, they stood up against the mist-veiled sky.  The sunlight had turned to an ominous copper glow.  And in that moment Olga was afraid, with that sick apprehension of evil that comes upon occasion even to the brave.  She gave no sign of it, but it was coiled like a serpent about her heart from then onwards.

The front-door stood open, its Gothic archway gaping wide and mysterious.  Still with that nightmare dread upon her, she descended and passed into the old chapel of the monks.

The stained window at the end cast a lurid stream of light along half its length.  She caught her breath in an irrepressible shudder.  She thought she had never before realized how gruesomely horrible that window was.

Nick’s hand closed upon her elbow, and she breathed again.  “Shall we go and investigate upstairs?” he said.

Mutely she yielded to the suggestion.  They went down the long vault-like hall, and turned through the archway in the south wall close to the window.  As they did so, a sudden sound rent the ghostly stillness, a sound that echoed and echoed from wall to wall, dying at last into a shrill thread of sound that seemed to merge into the cry of a sea-gull over the leaden waters.  As it died, there came a noise of running feet in the corridor above, and a white-faced maid-servant rushed gasping down the wide oak stairs.

Olga sprang to intercept her.  “Jane, what is the matter?  Where is Miss Violet?  Have you seen her?”

She caught the terrified girl by the shoulders, holding her fast while she questioned her.

Jane stopped perforce in her headlong flight.  “Oh, lor, Miss Olga, do let me go!  Miss Violet’s upstairs—­with Mrs. Briggs.  She’s in a dreadful taking, and don’t seem to know what she’s doing.  Did you hear her scream?  Mrs. Briggs says it’s hysterics, but it don’t sound like that to me.  It’s made my blood run cold.”