All of this Renwick's mind assimilated in his moment of rest and recuperation, but beside the loophole, clearly defined by the flashes in the heavens, his searching glances made out the uprights of another door. Here, perhaps----He bent forward, listening at its cracks, and then knelt, searching for a latch or keyhole. Nothing. But as he turned his back to the loophole, shutting out the starlight, he imagined that he saw something white upon the stone flagging. He leaned forward to pick it up and found that his fingers were softly illuminated. The spot was the reflection of a dim light within the room. He put his face close to the floor and found the aperture, a small hole of irregular shape in the baseboard of the door. A candle. Someone, then, was within? He put his ear to the chink and listened. A muffled sound, faint, but agonizingly definite--a woman's sobs! Renwick straightened and then listened again. Silence. Perhaps he had been mistaken. No. There it was again--fainter now. He ran his fingers softly along the edges of the woodwork, seeking a latch, a handle, but could find none. If there were a secret spring, it was so deftly hidden that he could not discover it. But in the brief moments of his search he had decided that he must enter this room at all costs. And so rising to his feet, he gave up trying to find the secret of admittance and slowly put his weight against the woodwork. It made no sound nor yielded to his pressure. He tried it again with the same results. Then despairing, and desperate, he struck a match and ran it quickly along the jambs. The hinges were concealed, but he found signs of them at the right. To the left, then--another match--a handle, a knob--where? And then just as the third match went out he found it--a flat, iron lever which moved around a swivel, cunningly let into the woodwork. He caught it quickly in his fingers, twisted it down, and then, automatic in hand, he pushed upon the door which opened and swung inward upon its hinges.
Renwick waited for a moment in the doorway, pistol in hand, blinking at the candle upon the table, like a cat emerging from a cellar, searching the vast room for its occupant. A huge room with wainscoted walls, with heavy hangings at the windows, massive furniture, a high canopied bed----