They crept down the stairs together, hand in hand, like children afraid of the dark. When they got to the long corridor, she turned to go down it but he held her back. "No. Not that way," he said. He felt suddenly as if he could not bear to stumble past the door with the white flower, even to get his other pistol and his father's letters. He was in a torment of impatience to leave the coquina house behind him forever. There must be arms in Dr. Gentian's study--besides, there was less chance of arousing the house if they went through there. He smiled. The high chamber with the gold stars in its ceiling which had seen his imaginary Eden crumble to ash should be the instrument of their deliverance from this house of pain. He led the way slowly to the hidden stair. When they had reached the panel behind the moon, an instinct of precaution made him slide it back and look. So, for the second time that day, an odd vision was vouchsafed him. Dr. Gentian stood in front of the fireplace, warming his hands. He must have been but newly come from the road, for his muddy boots were set in a corner to dry and his riding-coat, stretched out on a chair before the fire, was streaked and spattered. He himself, however, was as neat and trim as ever. He had changed his muddied coat for a loose dressing-gown and his boots for soft Moorish slippers, worked with gold thread and turned up in stiff petals at the toes. On his head was a turban of yellow silk, such as many gentlemen who had served in the Indies affected, and he rubbed his hands over and over each other like a fly cleaning its wings, as he talked to himself in a low, quick voice and smiled at the fire. Andrew could feel the Minorcan girl's whole body shudder against his for an instant and then grow still. "The gold cap!" she whispered in the voice of a beaten ghost, "He has on the gold cap. We shall never get free of him now." "Nonsense," said Andrew, though he too was oddly affected by the sight of that spruce, quaint figure crowned with an inverted tulip-flower, smiling dimly and talking under its breath to a burning log. "We'll take the other stairs." He shut the panel and started to go back. But a few steps away from the upper door, he stopped and listened. There were footsteps in the corridor, a light step and a heavy one, going to and fro like the pace of sentries on guard. "They are looking for me already," said the Minorcan girl, slowly, with a calm despair.