The last of the explosion had hardly died away before Anthony Luttrell had flung open the study door, and was making his way at a run towards the Yellow Drawing-Room.  
At the glass door which led on to the terrace he halted, opened it wide, and stood on the step looking out. Some glass was still falling from the broken windows on this side of the house. All the terrace on the right of where he stood was like a drawing in which the perspective has gone wrong. There was a great in one place, and some of the paving-stones were , whilst others had fallen in, leaving a hole over which a cloud of dust was settling.
 
Anthony turned his back upon all this and came back with great strides into the hall. Without so much as a look behind him to see whether he was observed, he loosened the spring, pushed open the door in the panelling and there halted, suddenly remembering the need of a light. He went back for a torch, and then passed down the steps without waiting to close the door.
 
 
That something had happened was obvious. With the self-control without which it is impossible to meet an emergency Anthony kept his thought focused upon what he was doing. At the bottom of the steps the way was still clear. He saw Jane’s broken pots and wondered what on earth they were doing there. Then he turned into the laboratory passage, flashing the light ahead of him. Half-way along the passage the roof had fallen in.
 
Anthony turned, came back into the main corridor, ran along it until he came to the place where the well passage joined it. Here he turned off, made his way cautiously past the well, and again found a mass of stone and blocking his path. A cold horror came over him, and all those thoughts to which he had barred his mind came nearer, pressing past those barriers and taking his consciousness by storm. He came back into the hall and shut the door in the panelling.
 
The hall was quite empty, but the voice of Blotson could be heard at no great distance. It was raised in and . Obviously he rallied a staff which inclined to hysteria, for one could hear a woman’s and a chorus of perturbation and nervous .
 
Anthony went to the front door and flung it open. His car stood at a little distance, the and the in close conversation. Anthony did not see them. He only saw Raymond Heritage, who was coming slowly up the steps. She was bareheaded, and her face was very pale. She wore a white dress with a black cloak over it. She stumbled twice as she climbed the steps and, if Anthony was only conscious of seeing her, she did not appear to be conscious of seeing any one at all.
 
It was only when the hand which she put out in front of her actually touched Anthony that she lifted her eyes and looked at him. Then she said in an odd, piteous sort of voice:
 
 
“Tony.”
 
“What is it? What has happened, Raymond? Are you all right?”
 
“I must speak to you—I must,” she said, at his arm and drawing him towards the study. They went in, and when the door was shut she turned to him with the tears running down her face.
 
“Tony, you heard? I think he’s dead. That place downstairs was mined, and he tried to kill us all, only we got away, Henry, the girl, and I. But Jeffrey’s dead—yes, I think he must be dead, and I know now what you thought. I didn’t know what you meant before, but I know now. You were wrong, Tony. Oh, Tony, won’t you believe me? I didn’t tell him about the passages, and I didn’............