He had noticed the young couple who had betrayed their alarm so ingenuously to every eye, and had already decided within himself that the man was just such a fool as might in a moment of vacuity pick up a bow and arrow to test his skill at a given mark.

Such things had been and such results had followed.

The man was a gawk and the woman a ninny; a few questions and their guiltiness would appear--that is, if they should be found near enough the tapestry to warrant his suspicion.

If not--the alternative held an interest all its own, and sent him in haste toward the stairway.
To reach it Mr.Gryce had to pass several persons standing where fate had fixed them among the statuary grouped about the court, and had his attention been less engrossed by what he expected to discover above, he would have been deeply interested in noting how these persons, or most of them at least, had so thoroughly accepted the situation that they had taken the exact position and the exact attitude of the moment preceding the alarm.

Those who were admiring the great torsos or carved chariots of the ancients, made a show of admiring them still.