“I do not know.”

“There must be,” he said, as though their dire necessity would compel one.  “Walk close behind me and tread lightly.”

Comparative silence had reigned, only the uneasy shuffling of feet and the chink of a glass, now the noise of voices broke out again, angry voices, raised in argument and quarrel.  Each moment Barrington expected a rush up the stairs.  If it came, what could he do?

He remembered the position of the windows through which a dim light had shown in the rear of the house.  The kitchen was probably there.  If another staircase existed it would be in the direction of the kitchen.  He turned along a passage to the left, his hand stretched out before him, lest he should stumble in the darkness.  The noise below was deadened here.

“Might we not climb from a window?” Jeanne whispered.

He had thought of it.  He tried to remember whether a tree or roof of an outbuilding against any of the windows made this means of escape possible.  He felt sure such a way did not exist.  He might have dropped from one of the windows in safety, but the woman could not do so.  He had not answered her question when there was a new sound close beside them, a heavy tread.

“Stand close to the wall,” he said.  “Keep near, and whatever happens do not speak.”

Some one was coming up stairs which were close to them, and in the dark.  Barrington strained his ears to locate the position.  If they were not seen escape was possible.

A thin, straight line of light was suddenly drawn perpendicularly, just in front of him, and then a door was opened.  A man, one of the inn servants, carrying a candle, stepped into the passage.  The light fell directly on the figures standing by the wall.  The man was startled.  So sudden an encounter was unusual, and in these days the unusual was dangerous.  Only a fraction of time was necessary to bring him to this conclusion, but in it, Barrington had also reached a conclusion equally definite.  As the man opened his mouth to call out, his throat was seized in a viselike grip and only the ghost of a sound gurgled and was lost.  The candle fell to the floor.  The noise of its fall seemed horribly loud.

“Stamp out the light,” Barrington said in a low tone.

Jeanne did so, obeying him promptly.

The man was a child in Barrington’s hands.  His efforts to unloose the gripping fingers at his throat were feeble and futile.  He was borne backward and downward to the floor, a knee was upon his chest, bending and cracking his bones, and then came oblivion.

“Come,” said Barrington.

She was close behind him and they went down the narrow stairs which had a bend in them.  There was a door at the bottom which was open, a light beyond.