But he had betrayed himself. Deborah, shocked, alarmed, crept along the wall away from him, uttering no sound. He groped about for her, muttering to himself, until, with a crash, one of the boards of the door fell. By the light which was thus let in, he saw where the girl was, and sprang at her. But she pushed him off with a piercing shriek, avoided nimbly a second attack, and got back to the front door just as it was quivering on its hinges. Goodhare saw that he had no more time to lose. “Good-bye, my dear; my love to Rees,” he said, as he re-mounted the staircase rapidly, and disappeared from view just as the front-door fell down with a crash on to the rotten flooring, and four policemen rushed in. “Upstairs, upstairs, he’s escaped upstairs,” panted out Deborah. Two out of the four men mounted the staircase in pursuit; the other two remained with her and wanted to know what had happened. “I don’t know myself yet,” she answered. She was still breathless and trembling from her recent encounter with Goodhare, and feverish with anxiety on Rees Pennant’s account. The officers seemed inclined to look upon her with suspicion. Deborah noticed this, and tried hard to compose herself. “I want you to go downstairs--into the cellars,” she cried. “They were quarreling there, and one of them ran upstairs past me while I was standing here.” “And what might you be doing here, miss?” asked one of the men, not uncivilly, but in a tone of cautious inquiry, which woke Deborah suddenly to a full knowledge of the dangerous thing she was doing in letting the servants of the law into this busy little nest of villainy. She had thought only of summoning help for Rees when she fancied that he was physically at the mercy of a savage and unscrupulous man; now she saw that by so doing she had perhaps betrayed Rees into the clutches of the law. There was no help for it now, however. “My name is Deborah Audaer,” said she. “I live at Carstow, in Monmouthshire. I will give you any particulars you want later.” “What was it you said about the cellars, miss?” asked the other constable, as the lady paused. Deborah turned desperately towards the ladder. “This way down,” said she briefly, as she led the way herself. It was quite dark, and the constables were unprovided with any light except matches, which they struck from time to time as they blundered down. It occurred to her that if Rees were unharmed and had failed to take warning by the noise of the policemen’s forcible entrance, she might find a chance of aiding his escape. So she hurried down as fast as she could, and stood with her back to the door of the lower cellar, so as to hide the fire-light which showed through the hole made by the old lock. “Search this place first, please,” said she. “I’ll light my lantern,” said one of the men. The other struck a match, and examined the den as well as he could by its feeble light. “What’s that in the corner?” said the first man.