'Why?' Sir Henry's eyes darted to and fro, bright with a desperate, hunted fear. 'It..." He swallowed; and at the same moment, from the depths of the house, there came a second faint cry, a long, soft sobbing moan. 'It is not safe,' Sir Henry began again, loudly, as though to blot out the noise. 'If dangerous for you, then how much more so for him.' He stopped talking, and Robert listened to the darkness. 'What was that cry we heard?' he asked. Sir Henry swallowed, and paused, as though preparing to lie. 'I do not know,' he said at last. 'I think you do.' A cold, sick suspicion was forming in Robert's guts. 'Why, Lovelace,' asked Milady, a faint frown on her brow, 'what do you mean?' Robert raised the lantern, and gazed down the long dark corridor from where the cries had seemed to come. 'I dread to say it.' He began to walk, then to run along the corridor. The Marquise followed him; she seized his arm and pulled him back, her face gleaming from the shadows like pale fire. 'Be prepared, Lovelace,' she hissed.
