Then, before she could utter cry or protest, he whirled her across
the room to the open window, catching up her cloak as he went; and,
almost before the horror of his kiss had dawned upon her, she was out
upon the balcony, alone with him in the awful dark.
He kept his hand upon her as he stepped over the stone railing, but all
power of independent action seemed to have left her. She was as one
stunned or beneath some spell. She stood quite rigid while he groped for
and found the ladder by which he had ascended. Then, as he lifted her,
she let herself go into his arms without resistance. He clasped her
hands behind his neck, and she clung there mechanically as he made the
swift descent.
They reached the ground in safety, and he set her on her feet. The
terrace on which they found themselves was deserted. But as they stood
in the dark they heard the fiends in the corridor burst into the room
they had just left. And Pierre Dumaresq, lowering the ladder, laughed to
himself a low, fierce laugh, without words.
The next instant there came a rush of feet upon the balcony above them
and a torrent of angry shouting. Stephanie shrank against a pillar, but
in a moment Pierre's arm encircled her, impelling her irresistibly, and
they fled across the terrace through the darkness. The man was still
laughing as he ran. There seemed to her something devilish in his
laughter.
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