An emissary who seemed to be a leader came over to him.

“Flint,” he snarled, “you get one chance—­see?  Beat it back to Brent Rock and see that you get that Brent girl to come to the place where we will turn you loose.  Understand?  If you fail it means death.  Think it over.”

Flint could only agree.

They bandaged his eyes and quickly led him back over the road by which they had come.

CHAPTER VIII

Brent Rock was brilliantly lighted against Locke’s coming.  At the foot of the great stairway a group of excited servants had gathered, as if for mutual protection.

“Not another day will I stay in this house,” quavered the cook.  “What with crazy laughing and the other carryings-on, I’m fair distracted.”

“Take shame to yerself, Mary Dolan, for yer gab of quittin’, with the master and Miss Eva in sore trouble,” answered the second girl.  “But as you say,” she continued, shaking her head, “it’s a gloomy old place, and if it wasn’t for Miss Eva I’d not be long in going myself.”

“’Ave you no loyalty?” asked the butler, turning on them both.

“Hould yer jaw, Johnny Bull,” threatened the cook.  “Indade no foreigner can tell Mary Dolan her duty.”

So they wrangled back and forth, and the underlying cause of all the discord was the old one—­fear.

Nor was Eva exempt from its baneful influence.  She was here, there, everywhere, allaying one servant’s apprehension, commanding another to perform some task in order to occupy that servant’s mind—­but, for herself, she knew that the strain would not lessen until Locke arrived.  She ran up-stairs and to a window from which she could obtain a better view of the drive along which he must come.

In a very short time, which, nevertheless, seemed an age to her, Eva was rewarded, and she fairly flew down the stairs, out of the house, and far down the drive.  Locke’s taxi stopped, he leaped out, and, regardless of the chauffeur, took Eva’s hand.

“Tell me quickly what has happened?” he inquired.

From a distance Dora was a witness, exulting.

“Paul stands a swell chance with her,” she sneered.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,” confided Eva, letting down just a bit of her restraint as, like a frightened child, she told of what she had learned about the disappearance of Flint.

Locke dismissed the driver, and together they walked slowly toward the house.

Not only Eva, but the entire household was relieved by Locke’s presence.  The cook rushed forward and, with a “God bless you, sir!” would have embraced him had he not stepped aside.  Even the dignified old family butler tried to take his hand, an unheard-of liberty on his part.  For, unknowingly, all had come suddenly to rely upon this quiet, unassuming young man.

Locke immediately asked to be shown to Flint’s room in the hope that Flint might have left some clue behind.  But, although they searched high and low, no success met their efforts.