Dick came out into the light of the setting sun, his haggard face white with dust. Arthur sat on a stone, his head in his hands, the picture of despair. Even Gilder was shaken from his habitual calm, could do no more than stare tragically at the ruin which hid so much. The broken arch of the window, red in the light of the setting sun, was more than ever like a query mark. There was something devilish about it, something which epitomised the spirit that leered and mocked at them.

“Come back to the house,” said Dick steadily, and, to the bailiff who approached him: “No, I shan’t want the dynamite – yet.”

They walked dispiritedly along the Mound, Arthur Gine, the most dejected of all, walking in the rear. Suddenly they heard him shout and turned. He was pointing across the river.

“What is it?” asked Dick, hurrying back to him.

“The wishing well – have you thought of that?” gasped Arthur.

“The wishing well?”

And then Dick remembered that rendezvous of the country swains, the unfathomable crevice in the earth down which, as a boy, he had dropped stones, listening to hear them strike from rock to rock until they grew fainter.

“That reaches somewhere,” said Arthur excitedly. “We can but try it.”

Dick ran down to the bank, plunged into the water and waded through to the other side. The two men followed him, and something whispered in Dick Alford’s heart that this was his last hope.

62

“What time is it?” asked Harry.

He had not spoken for two hours, but had sat, clasping his knees, his head thrust forward, engaged with his wild thoughts.

“Lend me the lantern.”

She passed the lamp back to him.

“A quarter to seven,” she said. “Harry I feel so hungry.”

“Do you?” he asked in surprise. “I don’t feel hungry. I feel – I don’t know.”

Presently he spoke again.

“How did we get here?” he asked. “I know the roof fell in, but how did we come into this beastly place?”

“You’ve been very ill,” she said gently. “You came here whilst you were sick.”

“Did I really?” He seemed amazed at her reply and did not speak again for fully five minutes. “I seem to remember now that I have been ill. I sleep so badly and have such horrible dreams. Poor old Dick was always ragging me about my patent medicines – queer bird, old Dick, but one of the very best.”

He spoke so heartily, with such enthusiasm, that her heart ached for some unknown reason.

“We shall have to get out of here,” he said.

She did not answer him.

For the tenth time he turned on the light of his lamp and examined the roof.

“It is vaulted,” he muttered. “I hope nothing happens here.”

She felt him shivering.