He shrugged. "You bear the name. And you possess at least a few drops of the Payne blood. Under the present urgent circumstances, no more is necessary. I am sure that Earl Robert would agree with me, could he still speak. You will come?" There was no escaping the intensity, the pressure, of those cold blue eyes. They seemed to follow my mind about as it groped for further excuses. Finally, inevitably it seemed, I agreed. A feeling grew in me that the meeting had been preordained, that, somehow, I had always been destined to visit the secret chamber in Chilton Castle. We finished our drinks and I went up to my room for rain ware. When I descended, suitably attired for the storm, the obese bartender was snoring on his stool in spite of savage crashes of thunder which had now become almost incessant. I envied him as I left the cozy room with William Cowath. Once outside, my guide informed me that we would have to go afoot to the castle. He had purposely walked down to the inn, he explained, in order that he might have time and solitude to straighten out in his own mind the things which he would have to do. The sheets of heavy rain, the strong wind and the roar of thunder made conversation difficult. I walked Indian-fashion behind the Factor who took enormous strides and appeared to know every inch of the way in spite of the darkness. We walked only a short distance down the village street and then struck into a side road which very soon dwindled to a foot path made slippery and treacherous by the driving rain. Abruptly the path began to ascend; the footing became more precarious. It was at once necessary to concentrate all one's attention on one's feet. Fortunately, the flashes of lightning were frequent. It seemed to me that we had been walking for an hour--actually, I suppose, it was only a few minutes--when the Factor finally stopped. I found myself standing beside him on a flat rocky plateau. He pointed up an incline which rose before us. "Chilton Castle," he said. For a moment I saw nothing in the unrelieved darkness. Then the lightning flashed. Beyond high battlemented walls, fissured with age, I glimpsed a great square Norman castle with four rectangular corner towers pierced by narrow window apertures which looked like evil slitted eyes. The huge weathered pile was half covered by a mantle of ivy which appeared more black than green. "It looks incredibly old!" I commented. William Cowath nodded. "It was begun in 1122 by Henry de Montargis." Without another word he started up the incline. As we approached the castle wall, the storm grew worse. The slanting rain and powerful wind now made speech all but impossible. We bent our heads and staggered upward. When the wall finally loomed in front of us, I was amazed at its height and thickness. It had been constructed, obviously, to withstand the best siege guns and battering rams which its early enemies could bring to bear on it.