Matteo seemed to have fallen into a kind of ecstasy. It was no longer possible to distinguish what he was saying. The words had degenerated into a form of mumbling chant which filled Marianne with horror. With eyes wide with dread, she saw him rise and remove the chalice which he set down beside him. She watched him covering the unconscious form with kisses. He seized hold of the knife and Marianne's senses swam but, by some miracle, her fear had gone. Leaving the shelter of the tunnel, she stepped out into the clearing, raised her right arm, took careful aim and fired.

The report seemed to fill the narrow space. Matteo sprang up, letting fall the knife, and gazed about him with a bewildered air. He was unhurt, for Marianne had aimed at the statue, but at the realization that the lower half of Lucinda's uplifted face had disappeared he uttered a dreadful, choking cry. He was about to spring at her, but pulled up short at the sound of Marianne's icy voice.

'Stay where you are, Matteo,' she said, throwing aside the now useless pistol and taking the other from her waist. 'I could have killed you, but I saw no reason to deprive your master of an excellent servant. However, I have another ball ready for you if you do not do as I say. As you have seen, I am not in the habit of missing. I have decapitated your she-devil there. The next will be for your own head. Carry Agathe away from here and put her back in her room. I shall not tell you twice.'

It did not seem that he had even heard her. He was on his hands and knees, crawling over the ruins, wild-eyed, slack-lipped, but struggling to get to his feet. He seemed to be in a trance, the sharp edges of the stones and the thorny brambles might not have existed for him. As he advanced towards her Marianne felt her flesh, shrinking at the thought that, to defend herself from this man she was going to be compelled to fire, almost at point blank range.

'Stop!' she commanded him. 'Go back, I tell you. Do you hear me, go back!'

He did not listen to her. He had succeeded in staggering to his feet and was lurching towards her, hands outstretched, still with that frightening, sleep-walker's face. Instinctively, Marianne stepped back, then back again, unable to bring herself to fire. It was as if a power stronger than her own will had paralysed her arm. Matteo, with his contorted face, his black robes and his torn and bleeding hands, truly resembled some demon cast up out of the pit. Marianne felt her strength ebbing. She took another step backwards, feeling behind her with her free hand for the entrance to the tunnel, but she must have changed direction without knowing it and met nothing but rampant weeds and branches. The undergrowth? Could she push through and hide? But even as she stepped back again, her foot struck against some obstacle and with a scream she staggered backwards into a bush. Still Matteo advanced, with outstretched hands. She saw him growing huge, out of all proportion. The pistol had slipped from her hand as she fell and Marianne gave herself up for lost.

She screamed again but the scream died in her throat. There was a sound like thunder and a fantastic apparition burst out of the thicket at the far end of the clearing. A tall white horse and black-clad rider, a rider who reared over Matteo with upraised whip, seeming enormous to the terrified girl. She screamed at the sight. Before consciousness left her, she had caught one glimpse of a broad hat brim and, below it, a blank face, white, dead and featureless, in which the eyes were black, glowing holes, a shapeless thing, hidden in the folds of a flying, black cloak. The rider mounted on Ilderim was a phantom, a spectre risen from the terrors of darkness about to ride her down… Marianne gave one desperate moan and fainted.


***

She never knew how long she remained unconscious. When she opened her eyes, with the sense of awakening from some interminable nightmare, she saw that she was in her own room, in her own bed, and as the mists cleared from her brain, she thought for a moment that it had indeed been nothing but a dream. Outside, a wind was blowing but everything else was quiet. Surely it had all been a bad dream: Agathe's room, the clearing, Matteo's insane attack on her and the fearsome rider bestriding Ilderim? The thought was deeply reassuring. It was all so strange. She must be suffering from an overactive imagination to have dreamed up that ghastly scene.

At that moment, Agathe was no doubt peacefully asleep in her own little bed, very far from thinking of the part that she had played in her mistress's nocturnal fantasies.

She decided that it would do her good to get up and wash her face in cold water. Her head felt heavy and her thoughts were still confused. But when she threw back the bedclothes, she realized that she was lying naked in her bed which had been strewn by some unknown hand with sprigs of sweet-smelling jasmine. Then she knew that she had not been dreaming. It was all true: the clearing and the black mass, the shot that she had fired at the statue, Matteo's murderous rage and the final irruption of the terrible horseman.

She felt her flesh creep and her hair stand on end at the memory. Was it he who had brought her back here? It could scarcely have been Matteo – Matteo had tried to kill her and she was sure that she had seen him go down beneath the rider's flailing whip. Then it was the Prince who had carried her back, who had undressed her and put her to bed – and who had strewn these fragrant blossoms about her unconscious and defenceless body – had even perhaps – no, that was impossible. Besides, why should he have done so when, according to his own word and the cardinal's, the last thing he desired was to make their marriage a reality? And yet, struggling desperately to pierce the mists that had enveloped her brain since she fainted, she seemed to find there a memory of kisses and caresses…

A wild feeling that was very close to panic jerked her from her bed. She wanted to escape, at all costs and at once, she wanted to leave this house where madness lurked in wait for her, and where her godfather's departure had left her a prey to all the perils of a house whose inhabitants made secrecy their daily bread. She wanted to go back to daylight and sunshine and the quiet countryside of France, less romantic perhaps but so much more comfortable. She wanted her pretty, peaceful house in the rue de Lille, Arcadius's twinkling eyes, Napoleon's rages, yes, even that would seem wonderful now, even the threat of Francis Cranmere. Yes, anything rather than this atmosphere of morbid sensuality which seemed to be dragging her down and against which all her young, healthy soul revolted.

Without stopping to put on her clothes, she ran to Agathe's room for the second time that night and found, to her immense relief, that she too was back in her bed. She would waste no time on questions. Who had brought the girl back and what had become of Matteo were things that could be left unasked. She shook the girl so hard that at last she managed to bring her to some semblance of consciousness, but when Agathe, who was clearly still suffering from the effects of the drug, sat swaying in her bed, staring at her with eyes clouded with sleep, Marianne picked up the water jug from the dressing-table and flung the contents hard in Agathe's face. The girl jumped and spluttered, but finally came fully awake.

'At last!' Marianne cried. 'Get up, Agathe, and hurry. You must pack our things, and go and wake Gracchus and tell him to put the horses to at once!'

'But – ma – my lady…' the girl stammered, disturbed as much by the sight of a naked Marianne with her hair tumbling down her back as by the shock of finding herself rudely awakened in the middle of the night with a jug of water. 'My lady – are we going away?'

'This minute! I want us to be on the road by sunrise. Come along, up with you. Faster than that!'

While Agathe was extricating herself from her soaking bed, Marianne, possessed now by a furious energy, ran back to her room and started emptying chests and cupboards, dragging out trunks from the box room and stuffing things inside pell-mell, just as they came to hand. By the time her maid appeared a few minutes later, dry and dressed, she found her working like a demon in the midst of the worst chaos she had ever seen. After one look, Agathe snatched up a dressing-gown and ran to wrap it round Marianne's bare shoulders.

'You'll catch your death of cold, my lady,' she said in a tone of strong disapproval, but dared ask no further questions.

'Thank you. Now, help me get these things into the trunks, or rather, no, go and wake Gracchus – no, on second thoughts, I'll go myself.'

But here Agathe rebelled. 'You can't do that, my lady! You just get dressed quietly while I go and find Gracchus. You can't be seen in the servants' quarters, going about in your dressing-gown! I'll send Dona Lavinia to help you.'

Much to Marianne's surprise, Agathe had scarcely left the room before the housekeeper appeared, fully dressed, as if she had not been to bed at all. It might have been the din raised by her mistress which had wakened her but she certainly showed no surprise at finding her surrounded by trunks and boxes and scattered heaps of clothes. Her curtsey was as calm and correct as if it had been eight or ten in the morning.

'Is your highness leaving us?' was all she said.

'Yes, Dona Lavinia. And I can't say you seem particularly surprised.'

The housekeeper's blue eyes surveyed Marianne's flushed countenance mildly. She smiled a little sadly.

'I have been afraid that it would be so, ever since his Eminence left us. Alone here, you could not help but wake the forces of evil which still hold sway over this house. There were too many things you wanted to know – and yours is the beauty that inspires tragedy. Do not take it amiss when I say that I am glad that you are going. It will be best for everyone.'