At its head the avenue became a circular driveway; and fronting
the driveway a stately house, with a massive Georgian facade and
colonnaded portico, flung its shadow across the white gravel of the
carriage approach.
There were lights in one wing of the house, and another appeared behind
the fan-light in the entrance-hall when the leader of the three
highbinders had tramped up the steps and touched the bell-push. Blount
had a fleeting glimpse of a black head with a fringe of snowy wool when
the door was opened, but he did not hear what was said. After the negro
serving-man disappeared there was a little wait. At the end of the
interval the door was opened wide, and Blount had a gruff order to
dismount.
What he saw when he stood on the door-mat beside his captor merely added
mystery to mystery. Just within the luxuriously furnished hall, where
the light of the softly shaded hall lantern served to heighten the
artistic effect of her red house-gown, stood a woman--a lady, and
evidently the mistress of the Georgian mansion. She was small and dark,
with brown eyes that were almost childlike in their winsomeness; a woman
who might be twenty, or thirty, or any age between. Beautiful she was
not, Blount decided, comparing her instantly, as he did all women, with
Patricia Anners; but--He was not given time to add the qualifying phrase
or to prepare himself for what was coming.
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