Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/377

 That, doubtless, was the real explanation of it all. Somehow, the Irishman's heart lightened in his breast.

A short wait had to be endured, while his captor entered the castle proper. O'Rourke was left in the charge of three men, who paid scant heed to what he said, but, on the other hand, watched him with a catlike interest, which O'Rourke appreciated as highly complimentary to his reputation.

But, ere long, he was conducted into the building, through a maze of echoing passages of stone, into what appeared to be the more modern part of the castle—that portion, evidently, wherein the princes of Grandlieu were accustomed to live, in the infrequent periods of their sojourns at Montbar.

Here the walls were paneled with a dark wood, and hung with rich tapestries; the floors were of hard wood, painstakingly polished to a rare brilliancy, and strewn with heavy, soft rugs of somber designs. The air was warm—warm with the comfort of open fires.

His captor halted him on the threshold of a heavy door of oak, upon which he knocked thrice.

"Enter, messieurs." A clear, even voice sounded from the further side; and O'Rourke was ushered across the threshold into a great apartment that, very likely, had been the dining hall two centuries back—high-ceiled, so that the rays of the electric lights, set in lieu of torches in the sconces upon the walls, hardly penetrated the shadows above them; and long and deep, with a huge fireplace built in one end, and the other shadowed by an overhanging balcony draped with tapestry.

The center of this room was, occupied by a long table strewn with books and papers and bearing a reading-lamp. The walls were lined with racks of arms, collected with the