“You certainly are, my dear,” said Lady Saxondale, smiling at her, then glancing involuntarily into the faces of the others, a queer expression in her eyes.

“Where is mamma?  I must go to her at once, Lady Saxondale.  The wretches were so cruel to her and to poor Uncle Henry—­good heavens!  Tell me!  They did not—­did not kill her!” She clutched at the back of a chair and—­grasped Quentin’s arm as it swept forward to keep her from falling.

“Your mother is safe and well,” cried Lady Saxondale, quickly.  “She is in Brussels, however, and not here, Dorothy.”

“And where am I?  Are you telling the truth?  Is she truly safe and well?  Then, why isn’t she here?” she cried, uneasily, apprehensively.

“It takes a long story, Miss Garrison,” said Lord Bob, soberly.  “I think you would better wait till after breakfast for the full story, so far as it is known to us.  You’ll feel better and I know you must be as hungry as a bear.”

There was a troubled, uncertain pucker to her brow, a pleading look in her eyes as she suffered herself to be led to a chair near the end of the table.  It had not struck her as odd that the others were deplorably devoid of the fervor that should have manifested itself, in words, at least.  There was an air of restraint almost oppressive, but she failed to see it, and it was not long until it was so cleverly succeeded by a genial warmth of manner that she never knew the severity of the strain upon the spirits of that small company.

Suddenly she half started from the chair, her gaze fastened on Quentin’s face.  He read the question in her eyes and answered before she could frame it into words.

“I did not sail for New York, at all,” he said, with an assumption of ease he did not feel.  “Dickey and I accepted Lord Saxondale’s pressing invitation to stop off with them for awhile.  I don’t wonder that you are surprised to find us here.”

“I am not surprised at anything now,” she said in perplexed tones.  “But we are not in England; we were not on the water.  And all those trees and hills and rocks I saw from the window—­where are we?”

“In the grimmest, feudliest, ghastliest old place between Brussels and Anthony Hope’s domain.  This is Castle Craneycrow; a real, live castle with parapets, bastions, traditions and, I insist—­though they won’t believe me—­snakes and mice and winged things that screech and yowl.”  So spoke Lady Jane, eagerly.  Miss Garrison was forgetting to eat in her wonder, and Mr. Savage was obliged to remind her that “things get cold mighty quick in these baronial ice-houses.”

“I know it’s a castle, but where is it located?  And how came you here?”

“That’s it,” quoth Mr. Savage, serenely.  “How came we here?  I repeat the question and supply the answer.  We came by the grace of God and more or less luck.”

“O, I’ll never understand it at all,” complained Dorothy, in despair.  “Now, you must answer my questions, one by one, Lord Saxondale.  To whom does the castle belong?”