For a while Kathleen was too bewildered to say anything, but soon one ugly fact stood out hard and convincing. She had been betrayed.

Slowly she gathered all her mental resources together and slowly she looked from Melun to Marie Estelle and back to Melun.

During the past few weeks she had learned to expect infamy and even treachery, but she had not looked for any action so villainous as this.

As the car went bounding down the hill at an ever-increasing rate of speed Kathleen saw Melun give an appreciative nod to the woman at her side, and she watched a little smile of triumph flit across the woman's mouth.

Kathleen could only dimly wonder what this new move meant. That she had been kidnapped she could not doubt, but for precisely what purpose she could not understand, though she judged that she had been taken prisoner with the idea of hurrying Lord Penshurst to a decision.

The first shock of Melun's entry over, Kathleen steeled herself against all fear, and calling her pride to her assistance disdained to ask any questions.

The silence in the electric-lighted car became, indeed, so oppressive that Melun, who had been waiting for some passionate outburst on Kathleen's part, could bear it no longer.

“I suppose,” he said, looking at her with an insolent sneer, “that I owe you an apology for being compelled to treat you in this way?”

But Kathleen made no answer; she only looked at him with scorn.

“As a matter of fact, I consider it was well and neatly done,” continued Melun. “Excellently planned and excellently carried out. My congratulation to you,” and again he gave Mme. Estelle a little nod.

Once more there was silence, but it was Kathleen who broke it now. She was determined to carry the war into the enemy's camp. If she could achieve nothing else, she could at least, by showing a mingled boldness and resignation, cause Melun considerable uneasiness.

“I suppose you have put up these things”—and she tapped lightly with her fingers against the blind shutters—“because you were afraid that I might scream or struggle?”

“That is precisely the case,” said Melun.

“You need have no fear of that,” returned Kathleen. “I give you my word that I will neither call out nor attempt to escape. The women of my family are in the habit of acting bravely and openly.”

She intended this as a covert hit at Mme. Estelle, and apparently the shot went home, for she saw the woman redden a little and slightly turn away her head.

Melun gave Kathleen one quick, shrewd glance and then lowered the shutters; and Kathleen, looking almost lazily out of the window, saw that they were now almost clear of the park, and, so far as she could judge by the position of the sun, were running towards the southwest.

The drive continued in complete silence. Mme. Estelle remained red and awkward, Melun was morose and ill at ease. Kathleen alone was self-possessed, though pale. She even forbore to ask whither they were bound, for though sadly tempted to do so, she checked herself with the rather sad reflection that she would know sooner or later.

By-and-by they drew near to a considerable town, and Melun, in spite of Kathleen's promise, drew the blind shutters up once more.

He had, however, the grace to be moderately apologetic.

“It is not because I distrust your word, Lady Kathleen,” he said, “but because I have to take precautions. One does not know who might happen to look into the car.”

It was not long before Melun lowered the shutters again, and Kathleen's heart gave a little thump, for looking out on the country she realised that she was on a familiar road. She recognised the high hedges between which they were running as those which border the long lane running between Croydon and Hayes Common.

The car began to shoot up-hill, and they went over a breezy heath, subsequently running down into the valley, as Kathleen judged, of Farnborough.

For a little while they kept to the main road and then turned off to the left again. Half an hour's run brought them to Westerham—from which place Sir Paul took his title.

As the car turned to the left once more Kathleen had little doubt that they were bound for Sevenoaks; nor was she wrong.

But the car did not stop here; it swept past the Royal Crown Hotel, past the old Grammar School, past the wooded stretch of Knole Park, down the steep and tortuous River Hill.

At Hildenborough the car turned up to the right and raced through the Weald of Kent. This was all familiar ground to Kathleen, and she realised that to some extent they were doubling on their tracks, making a zigzag course along the valley at the base of Ide and Toys Hill.

Suddenly the car stopped, and Kathleen, looking through the open window, saw the chauffeur get down from the seat and open a gate which apparently led to a more private path.

Through this the car passed and was swallowed up in a wood. But the jolting and rattling over ruts soon ceased, the road widened and became smooth, and they began to climb in curves up the face of a steep hill.

By-and-by they came to a small plateau on the edge of which was an old farmhouse. The ground dropped almost sheer away from it at the southern end, while almost the whole of the front of it was washed by a muddy and apparently deep pool.

As they drew up before the little low doorway Kathleen heard several great dogs baying at different points.

The chauffeur got down from his seat again and drew near to open the door. Then for the first time Kathleen, with a sinking of her heart, recognised the man as Crow.

The short winter's day had now drawn to a close, and as he entered the house Melun ordered the lamps to be lit.

Mme. Estelle led the way into a not ill-furnished dining-room, the window of which projected over the vast cliff.

To reach this room they had traversed a long passage, and Kathleen appreciated the fact that the house was very curiously built. It consisted, indeed, of two portions, which were linked together by a long stone-flagged corridor.

Melun helped himself liberally to neat brandy. Mme. Estelle sent for Crow and told him to order tea.

Kathleen had been filled with an intense foreboding as she entered the house, a foreboding which increased as she slowly recognised that she and Mme. Estelle were apparently the only women in the place.

For the tea was brought in by a man, not a farmhand or an honest countryman, but a villainous-looking individual with a pock-marked face and little gold earrings in the lobes of his frost-bitten ears. He walked with his feet wide apart, and with a slightly rolling gait. He had an immense bull neck, and the hands with which he grasped the tray were large, grimy and hairy. Kathleen set him down as a sailor; nor was she wrong.

When tea was over Melun lit a cigarette, and drawing Mme. Estelle on one side conversed with her for some time in whispers.

At the end of the whispered conference between Melun and Mme. Estelle the woman left the room without so much as a word to Kathleen or even a glance in her direction.

Melun turned round with a baleful light in his eyes.

“Now, my lady,” he said, “we can have this matter out.”

Kathleen's afflictions had only increased her old habit of command and her natural dignity. Though in reality she was the prisoner, she might have been the captor.

“Before you speak, Captain Melun,” she said, “I also have something to say. How long do you intend to keep me here? I ask this, not for my own sake, but for my father's.”

“That,” said Melun, with a malicious grin, “depends entirely on your father.”

“By this time, of course,” Kathleen continued, “a great hue-and-cry will have been raised after me in London. Do you intend to return there to-night? Again I ask this question for my father's sake. He should be informed of my whereabouts at once; for you must remember that he is an old man and will probably take this very much to heart.”

“He will not be informed of this to-night,” said Melun, shortly. “Because,” he continued, with a villainous leer, “I am only cruel to be kind. I want to have all the details of your ransom and our marriage settled as soon as possible. A night of waiting will soften your dear old father's heart, and he will probably listen to reason in the morning.”

Kathleen shuddered and drew a little further away from Melun. “You coward,” she said, and looked at him with infinite contempt.

Again a dangerous light leapt into Melun's eyes.

“Have a care,” he shouted, “what names you call me here. I do not wish to be compelled to make you feel your position. But if necessary I shall——”

Kathleen did not take her scornful eyes from his face, and Melun at last looked shiftily away.

As he apparently did not intend to speak again, Kathleen put to him another question:

“Who is the woman,” she asked, “you employed to get me here?”

“That is no business of yours,” snarled Melun, “though you can, if you wish to speak to or allude to her, call her Mme. Estelle.”

“I merely asked,” said Kathleen, “because I was curious to know how she came to make use of the name of Russia.”

“It was simple, perfectly simple. It was largely a matter of guesswork. It was only natural to suppose that you would be doing what you could to smooth matters over with the Czar.”

Kathleen nodded a little to herself. There were apparently few details of her father's secret with which Melun was not acquainted.

“Now,” said the captain, changing his tone and attempting to be brisk and businesslike, “let us for a moment consider the essential points of the case. Of the ransom, of course, there can be no question. I shall increase the sum because of the obstinate way in which your father has refused my overtures. That, however, will be all the better for us.”

He said this with an insinuating air for which Kathleen loathed him.

“The only remaining obstacle is yourself. But you, perhaps, will no longer refuse the hand which I so considerately offer you in marriage.”

“Captain Melun,” said Kathleen, coldly, “you are at liberty to discuss the business side of this matter as much as you please. But I decline altogether to allow you to insult me. After all, it is unnecessary, for I have nothing to say on the matter, and must refer you to my father.”

“I had hoped,” said Melun, “that I might be able to gladden his heart with the news of your consent.”

Kathleen turned her back on him, and Melun swore at her without disguise. But she paid no heed.

Presently he walked round the room so that he could come face to face with her.

“It is early,” he said, “but early hours will do you good. If you will be so kind as to accompany me I will show you to your room.”

He led the way up three flights of stairs till they came to a small landing. Out of this there opened only one door, and through this Melun passed.

Kathleen now found herself in a large, square room, simply and yet fairly well furnished, partly as a bedroom and partly as a sitting-room.

“It is here,” said Melun, “that I am unfortunately compelled to ask you to await your father's decision. However, I release you unconditionally from your promise neither to scream nor to attempt escape.

“You are at perfect liberty to scream to your heart's content. There is no one here who will mind in the least. You are also at perfect liberty to make what efforts at escape you choose. I fear that you will only find them futile.”

He went out quickly and closed the door after him. Kathleen, listening in the badly-lighted room, could hear a key grate in the lock and bolts shot in both at the top and the bottom of the door.

Quickly and methodically she made an examination of her prison. She looked into the cupboards and into the drawers and the massive bureau. But there was nothing about the room of the remotest interest to her which offered the faintest suggestion, sinister or otherwise.

It was, indeed, only when she looked out of the windows, of which there were three, that she discovered to the full how utterly helpless was her position.

The window on the south side was apparently over the window of the dining-room, and, as she peeped over the sill, looked sheer down the face of the precipice beneath her.

The west window, she found, looked down into a stone courtyard, while the window on the east overhung the pond. Apparently she was imprisoned in a tower.

When Melun had reached the ground floor he sought out Mme. Estelle.

“I have not had much opportunity of saying anything to you,” he remarked as he entered the room in which she was sitting, “but I should like to tell you now how splendidly you have done.”

Madame was restless and ill at ease.

“If I had seen that girl before to-day,” she said, “I should never have brought her here.”

“Then you would have been a fool,” said Melun, rudely.

“Possibly, but still, even at the risk of your displeasure, there are a few things which I do not care to do.”

Melun glanced at her sharply.

“Of course,” she continued, “it is too late now. I have made up my mind, and we will go through with it, but frankly, I don't like this business.”

“Never mind,” said Melun; “it will not last for ever. To-morrow ought to settle it. I shall go back to town the first thing, starting at about five o'clock, as I shall have to make a dÉtour. I have changed the number of the car, but still it is hard to say what Westerham may be up to. If he finds that his precious motor has not come back to town he may take to advertising it as stolen—which would be awkward.”

Madame at this point bade Melun good-night, and the captain sent for Crow. To him he gave instructions to have the car ready at five o'clock, but told him that he should drive it back to town himself.

“You can serve a better purpose by remaining here,” he said. “For, mark you, I will have no hanky-panky games in this house in my absence. And, mark you, too, I have no desire to have Mme. Estelle and Lady Kathleen becoming too friendly. You never can rely on women. They are funny creatures, and Madame is far too sympathetic with the girl already. So I shall look to you to stop anything of that sort.

“For the rest, you will know what to do if certain contingencies should arise. I have not brought the dogs here for nothing.” He broke off and shuddered a little himself as at some short distance from the house he could hear the baying of the great hounds.

“They are loose, I suppose?” he asked.

Crow nodded.

“Then Heaven help the stranger,” he rejoined with a cruel laugh, and pulling a rug over himself he lay down to sleep on the sofa.

He was up betimes in the morning, and had, indeed, been gone four hours when Mme. Estelle came lazily down to breakfast.

Melun had left no instructions in regard to Kathleen's food, and as she did not consider it advisable to let the unfortunate girl starve, Madame, after she had herself breakfasted, set a tray with the intention of carrying it up to Kathleen's room.

Before she could do this, however, it was necessary to send for Crow in order to obtain the key.

When she asked for it, Crow shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

“I have very strict orders,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Madame demanded sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Simply that the master said that you and the young lady were not to get talking too much. He said nothing about food, or of waiting on her ladyship, and it didn't occur to me until this morning that it was a bit of a rum job for a chap like myself to wait on her.

“However,” he added, with a smirk, “I don't so much mind.”

But Crow's clumsy utterances had again aroused all Madame's sleeping suspicions. There was, moreover, no reason why she should keep silence now. Her treachery was a different matter altogether. The way was smooth for asking Kathleen the question the answer to which meant so much to her.

She laughed in Crow's face.

“It was hardly necessary for the captain to give you any orders, seeing that he gave certain instructions to me. He said that as there was no other woman in the house it would be my place to take Lady Kathleen anything that she actually needed. I am going to take up her breakfast now. Give me the key.”

Crow hesitated a moment, but finally handed over the key. Madame put it on the breakfast tray and went upstairs.

Kathleen, as she heard the bolts drawn back and the key turned in the lock, suffered fresh apprehension. For she had caught the rustle of Madame's skirts outside, and she would rather have faced Melun than the woman.

With very little apology Mme. Estelle entered, and, setting the breakfast down, immediately withdrew. Her impatience to ask the question was great, but she schooled herself to waiting.

In half an hour's time she went up for the tray, and then she faced Kathleen boldly and looked her in the eyes.

“Lady Kathleen,” she said, “I am really ashamed to have brought you here in such a treacherous way. I will not ask you to forgive me, for you will not understand. I can only tell you that I am a very loving and jealous woman.”

Mme. Estelle paused, and was conscious that Kathleen looked at her in great surprise.

“I want,” she continued, “to ask you a question which means much to me. Is it, or is it not, one of Captain Melun's conditions that you shall marry him before he returns your father's secret?”

“Yes,” answered Kathleen, very quietly, “it is.”

Madame's rather flushed face grew white, and her eyes blazed with passion. She clenched her fists and beat the air with them.

“Oh, the liar!” she cried, “the liar! Oh! it is hard to be treated like this when I have done so much for him.”

Kathleen drew back, startled and amazed.

“I assure you that you need have no fear so far as I am concerned. Both my father and myself have refused to comply with that condition, and we shall refuse to the end.”

Madame, however, paid but little heed to Kathleen; she was beside herself with rage.

“Ah, ah!” she cried, “wait till he returns! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!”

So distorted with fury was the woman's face that Kathleen became alarmed for her sanity. She drew near to her and endeavoured to catch her hands in her own, imploring her to be calm.

By-and-by Mme. Estelle listened to her, and in a sudden revulsion of feeling fell on her knees, sobbing bitterly.

Kathleen bent over her, doing her best to console her, and presently, as the woman grew calmer, she endeavoured to turn the situation to her own and her father's advantage.

“The best way to defeat Captain Melun's scheme, so far as I am concerned,” she urged, “is to release me.”

But at that Mme. Estelle leaped to her feet again and her face was hideous in its cunning.

“Ah! not that,” she cried, “not that! If I distrust him, I distrust you still more. Your pretty face may look sad and sorrowful, and you may declare to me that you will never consent; but I will wait and see. I'll wait until Melun returns and confront you with him. Then perhaps I shall learn the real truth.”

Kathleen made a little despairing gesture with her hands; argument, she saw, would be useless.

Gathering herself together, Madame blundered, half blind with tears, out of the room, and Kathleen with a sinking heart heard the bolts drawn again.

All through the day Madame sat brooding, sending Kathleen's lunch and tea up to her by Crow.

All the evening she still sat and brooded, until as eleven o'clock drew near and there were still no signs of the captain she had worked herself up into a hysteria of rage.

Twelve o'clock struck, and still the captain was absent. Another half-hour dragged slowly by, and then she heard his car grating its way up the hill-side.

She was at the door to meet him, and would have plunged straightway into the matter which absorbed her but for the sight of his face.

It was haggard and pale as death. His eyes were blazing in their sockets, and his straggling hair lent him altogether a distraught and terrifying aspect.

“Melun!” cried the woman, stretching out her hand, “what is it?”

“I don't know,” he said hoarsely; “I wish I did, but the Premier's gone.”

“Gone! What do you mean?”

“He is lost. Westerham kidnapped him.”

“Impossible!”

“Impossible, you fool!” shouted the captain, irritably. “It's true—perfectly true!”

He walked into the hall and sank exhausted into a chair. “As for me,” he grumbled, “I have had the narrowest escape I ever had.”

“So that's all, is it?” cried Mme. Estelle, remembering her own grievance. “So that's all!

“But what of me? What do you think I have gone through? What do you think I have suffered? What do you think I have found out?”

Melun rose unsteadily from his chair and looked at her in alarm.

“Is it Lady Kathleen?” he asked; “is she safe?”

“Safe! Oh, yes, she is safe,” she cried, with a peal of uncanny laughter. “Safe for your kisses and for your caresses. Oh, you liar! you liar! I have been true to you in all respects, and you have been false to me in everything that mattered. So you will marry the pretty Lady Kathleen, will you? Oh, but you won't! Never! Never!”

She rushed at Melun as though to strike him, but Melun, jaded though he was, was quick and strong.

He caught her brutally, as he might a dog, by the neck, and threw her into the dining-room, the door of which stood open, and, utterly careless as to what harm he might do to her, sent the unhappy woman sprawling on to the floor. In a second he had banged the door to and turned the key in the lock. He sank down on to the bench trembling and exhausted.

He heard Marie pick herself up and hurl herself in blind and impotent fury against the door.

He listened, shaking like a leaf, as shriek after shriek of frenzy reached his ears.

Up in the tower Kathleen heard these shrieks too, and shuddered. A horrible fear took possession of her heart that there was murder being done below.

She sat on the edge of her bed with her hands pressed to her heart, listening in fascinated horror.

The shrieks died away, and there was complete silence in the house for full half an hour.

Then Kathleen heard a sudden shout, a crashing of glass and a scrambling, tearing noise, the hideous bay of the boarhounds in the courtyard, a scream, and a thud.

Stabbing the other noise with sharp precision came the sound of shots.