“Mr. Quest!” she screamed.  “Don’t go near him—­I’ve got him covered.  I’m all right.”

Quest drew a long breath.  The man who stood glaring at him was well-dressed and still young.  He was unarmed, however, and Quest secured him in a moment.

“The girl’s mad!” he said sullenly.  “No one wanted to do her any harm.”

Hardaway and his men came trooping up the stairs.  Quest relinquished his prisoner and went over to Lenora.

“I’ve been so frightened,” she sobbed.  “They got me in here—­they told me that this was the street in which my aunt lived—­and they wouldn’t let me go.  The woman was horrible.  And this afternoon this man came.  The brute!”

“He hasn’t hurt you?” Quest demanded fiercely, as he passed his arm around her.

She shook her head.

“He would never have done that,” she murmured.  “I had my hatpin in my gown and I should have killed myself first.”

Quest turned to Hardaway.

“I’ll take the young lady away,” he said.  “You know where to find us.”

Hardaway nodded and Quest supported Lenora down the stairs and into the taxi-cab, which was still waiting.  She leaned back and he passed his arm around her.

“Are you faint?” he asked anxiously, as they drove towards the hotel.

“A little,” she admitted, “not very.  But oh!  I am so thankful—­so thankful!”

He leaned a little nearer towards her.  She looked at him wonderingly.  Suddenly the colour flushed into her cheeks.

“I couldn’t have done without you, Lenora,” he whispered, as he kissed her.

Lenora had almost recovered when they reached the hotel.  Walking up and down they found the Professor.  His face, as he came towards them, was almost pitiful.  He scarcely noticed Lenora’s deshabille, which was in a measure concealed by the cloak which Quest had thrown around her.

“My friend!” he exclaimed—­“Mr. Quest!  It is the devil incarnate against whom we fight!”

“What do you mean?” Quest demanded.

The Professor wrung his hands.

“I put him in our James the Second prison,” he declared.  “Why should I think of the secret passage?  No one has used it for a hundred years.  He found it, learnt the trick—­”

“You mean,” Quest cried—­

“He has escaped!” the Professor broke in.  “Craig has escaped again!  They are searching for him high and low, but he has gone!”

Quest’s arm tightened for a moment in Lenora’s.  It was curious how he seemed to have lost at that moment all sense of proportion.  Lenora was safe—­the relief of that one thought overshadowed everything else in the world.

“The fellow can’t get far,” he muttered.

“Who knows?” the Professor replied dolefully.  “The passage—­I’ll show it you some day and you’ll see how wonderful his escape has been—­leads on to the first floor of the house.  He must have got into my dressing-room, for his old clothes are there and he went away in a suit of mine.  No one has seen him or knows anything about him.  All that the local police can find out is that a man answering somewhat his description caught the morning train for Southampton from Hamblin Roads.”