"It's not a question of money. This house is not mine, and I cannot open it to whom I will. I have received strict orders from the Master to admit no one during his absence. If he should return and find me entertaining strangers, I should suffer." "Your master, whoever he may be, never meant that you should turn away at midnight a young lady exhausted by a twelve hours' wandering in the forest without food. I ask not for myself, but for her. It is but for a single night." "A single hour would be too long." Paul stood dismayed by the old man's churlishness. He pictured Barbara's look of distress on announcing that he had brought her on a bootless errand. "You a Greek," he cried, "to refuse hospitality to an Englishman, whose uncle fought for Greece--" This appeal wrought a remarkable change in the old man. "What do you say you are?" "An Englishman, nephew of Colonel Graysteel, commandant of the British forces at Corfu, and--" "An Englishman! Why the devil didn't you say so before? I took you for a damned Austrian. And you are the nephew of old 'Fighting Graysteel'? I was with him at Missolonghi. Wait. I'll be down in a moment. Hi, Jacintha, Jacintha," he added, addressing some one within. "Get up, or I'll throw something at your head." The old man withdrew from the casement, and Paul concluded that he was coming downstairs, for the baying of the dogs gradually ceased; there were sounds suggestive of the idea that he was kicking them into some place of safety. "Jacintha?" thought Paul. "The old fellow's wife, daughter, or servant? Whoever she may be, I am glad for the young lady's sake that a woman lives here." Footsteps were now audible in the passage. A little panel in the upper part of the door slid aside revealing an iron grating, behind which appeared a man's face set in a square of light. "No tricks with me. Now, mylordos, if you are what you say you are, speak to me in English, for though I don't talk the language myself I understand it when spoken by others." "Open the door, and give me some supper--" began Paul. "Ah! you're an Englishman, all over," interrupted the other with a dry chuckle. "The first thing he thinks of is his belly." And the inmate, apparently satisfied with this credential of nationality, swung open the great iron-studded door and revealed himself. He was a little man, and though past seventy years of age, his form had lost little of the elasticity and strength of youth. His thin curved nose was extremely suggestive of the beak of an eagle, a resemblance increased by his bright piercing eyes. His hair was white and flowing, and his moustaches were of such a length that he had tied them together at the back of his head.