Had we both been in earnest it would have been short shrift for the patroon. I had the advantage, both in years and strength, as well as in skill with my weapon. From the first I was as cool as if drilling on parade. My very coolness seemed to exasperate him further. After a few passes his manner began to change. I saw the scared look in his face and the flush of blood that always came before one of his mad seizures. Then he began to grow unsteady. The swiftness of his blows redoubled. He left his body unguarded twenty times. I could, had I been so minded, have run him through with my eyes shut. Still he fought on with blind desperation. Then we heard someone coming down the hall. There was a woman’s cry of terror. The next moment Miriam, unmindful of her own danger, dashed between us and caught her father in her arms. She gave me one glance of withering contempt. “On top of all you would murder him before my eyes. Be gone.” I went out and down the corridor, minded to go back to Yorke. At the door two guards stopped me and turned me back. Miriam had told me that I was a prisoner in the house; this confirmed what she had said and showed that my chance of escape was gone. “We have strict orders,” said one of the guards who turned me back, “No one is to pass out.” I tried both of the other doors with the same ill success. But I did not care much, I was so miserable. I felt that the end had come, and that it mattered little how the blow fell. I went to my room—that was not guarded away from me. As I closed the door I bethought me of the second of Louis’s packets, which was still in my pocket unopened. I took it out and broke the seal. As my eyes fell upon the writing, I could not repress a cry at the startling news that was contained in the first line. “Sir Evelin Marmaduke is starving to death in the cave beneath the Hanging Rock.” Sir Evelin Marmaduke, he whom all the city mourned as dead? Could he be still alive? Louis’s narrative was short and clear. “Colonel Fletcher granted the Marmaduke estate to Patroon Van Volkenberg upon the death of Sir Evelin. One day his boat was caught in the tide about Hell Gate. The patroon and I discovered him, half drowned and unconscious, upon the shore. The patroon wanted to let him die, but I insisted otherwise. So he was imprisoned in the cave beneath the rock. By accident Ruth Le Bourse discovered our secret. We tried to keep her silent. But she would not consent. I repent now that we handled her so roughly, but she is better off.”