The room was in pitch darkness; the candle which Grocz had left had already burned down to nothing. Hearing him, Elizabeth gave a muffled shriek. "Fear not, mademoiselle." Three simple words, but to Elizabeth they represented a suggestion of unexpected comradeship. The deep, resonant tone of his voice echoed round the room. "Fear not!" A cultured voice at last, when all she had heard that day had been the slurring accents of the uncouth, the uneducated. "Fear not!" Whatever words that voice might have conveyed to her hearing none could have been more superfluous, for the deep notes inspired trust, revealed the voice of a gentleman. Just as her father had done, Elizabeth sobbed slightly at the unexpected possibility of succour which was so suddenly held out before her, dazzling in its promise. Once again the strain of the occult within warned her that the man whose voice had floated to her through the darkness was a friend, even though he had not told her so. "Mademoiselle, I have come to rescue you." If she had needed proof his words supplied it. "Oh, thank God!" she murmured. "For if--if that man had come to me I would have died.... But--my father----" "Is already safe and sound." Wenzel heard a soft, cooing laugh. "Oh, monsieur, how can I thank you? Whatever can I say or do to show my gratitude? My father safe! It sounds--wonderful. You have done this?" "I have." Impatiently he replied, but if his manner was brusque she did not notice it. In a low, vibrant voice, which grew softer as she approached him, she poured out her gratitude in full measure: "Monsieur, what you have done this night will for ever live within my memory. On every anniversary of this date I shall bless your name, remember every word you speak, picture to myself every line of your face----" "Stop!" Fiercely, passionately he hurled the word at her, for the pain of her gentle thoughts seared into his heart with a rending, tearing gash. "Every line of his face." God! Why had she said that? How well he knew that once she saw his face each line of it would indeed be for ever depicted in her memory--but not in the way she believed. Its forbidding distortion would haunt her, its satyr-like grimness would represent a horror from which she would turn away in fear and loathing. "I want neither your thanks nor your remembrance. Do you not realize that at any moment your father's escape may be discovered? Get ready!" he ordered, and his words cut through the intervening space with the sharpness of a rapier. Bewildered and confused by his attitude she could only answer in a low undertone: "I am ready." What type of man was it who had so suddenly slipped into her life? Intuition, her sense of hearing, everything suggested that her unseen rescuer was a gentleman, yet his last words were those of a blustering bully, a coarse and domineering adventurer.