The thought did not make for calmness. She said afterward that the tower must have been haunted by the very spirit of fear, for a panic terror came over her, something deeper and fiercer than anything Schultz could inspire--at any rate, in this century--and a caution and care that such as fear alone can teach. She slid from her hiding-place and down the stair, and as she went she heard above her those other steps, now returning. Nothing in the world seemed so good as the thought of the sunshine and free air into which in another moment she would come out. Round and round the spirals of the stone staircase went her noiseless, flying feet; the sound of the feet that followed came louder and quicker; a light showed at the bottom of the stairs; she rounded the last curve with a catch of the breath that was almost a cry, and in her eyes the vision of the fair, free outside world. She sprang toward green grass and freedom and sunlight, and four dark walls received her. For half-way down that tower the steps divide and she had passed the division and taken the stairs that led down past the level of the earth. And the light that had seemed to come through the doorway of the tower came through the high-set window of a dungeon, and there was no way out save by the stairs on which already she could hear feet descending. The man who followed her had not missed the way. To turn back and meet that man on the stairs was impossible. She stood at bay. And she knew what the captive in old days must have felt--what the rabbit feels when it is caught in the trap. She stood rigid, with such an access of blind terror that the sight of the man, when he came down the last three steps, was almost--no, quite--relief. She had not fled from him, but from something more vague and more terrible. And when he spoke fear left her altogether, and she asked herself, "How could I have been so silly?" "Miss Basingstoke?" He spoke on what he meant for a note of astonishment and pleasure, but his acting was not so good as hers, and he had to supplement it by adding, "This is, indeed, a delightful surprise." "Oh, Mr. Schultz," she said, and quite gaily and lightly, too--"how small the world is! Of all unlikely places to meet any one one knows!" and she made to pass him and go up the stairs. But he stood square and firm at the stair-foot. "No hurry," he said, "no hurry--since we _have_ met. It is a wonderful pleasure to me, Miss Basingstoke. Don't cut it short. And what have you been doing all this long time?" "Oh, traveling about," she answered, watching the stair-foot as the rabbit from beside its burrow might watch the exit at which a terrier is posted. "Just seeing England, you know. We neglect England too much, don't you think, rushing off to the Riviera and Egypt and India and places like that when all the while there are the most beautiful things at home."