"It's from Sir Andrew," he said. "There's trouble--trouble at Dorby."
Ruxton snatched at the ominous paper and his eyes eagerly sought the boldly-written message.
"Explosion here at 6 A. M. Drawing offices completely wrecked. Serious fire. Certain departments damaged and had narrow escape complete destruction.--Farlow."
It was the second blow in a few hours. Ruxton was hit hard. He read into the message all the ominous facts which had been left unwritten.
But in a moment he had been roused out of himself. The loss of the woman he loved had left him stunned in a curious degree. He had been attacked thereby through the sensitive organism which controlled all that belonged to the emotional side of the human heart. A terrible weight of depression had overwhelmed him for the moment. Now it was different. Here was a tangible attack. Here was something that left his heart untouched, but roused instead all the human fighting instinct which had lain dormant within him. There was no deadening apathy, there was no feeling of helplessness. He was alive, alert, and full of battle. So he prepared for a second night in succession to be spent on the railway.
"I must go to Dorby to-night," he said briefly. Then he added, as he passed up-stairs to his library: "Get on to Scotland Yard and put me through."
In the valley of Bar-Leighton the climatic pendulum had swung again. A radiant sort of Indian summer seemed to have definitely set in. Now the sun was shining, and fleecy clouds swept along the bosom of a brisk southeasterly breeze.
But the sinister genius of the place remained unchanging. It would have been optimism of a superlative order to claim that Prince von Berger ever really changed. For those in contact with him it was impossible to believe him capable of warmth or feeling. Even Ludwig von Salzinger, whose human feelings were of a grosser, baser type, regarded him as a mere mechanism, inspired by some brilliant detached evil genius. He had no love for him, contact with him depressed him, and his prevailing emotion was one of fear.
Von Berger turned from the table at which he was sitting. He passed a long document across to Von Salzinger, who was standing before the log fire crackling in the great dining-room fireplace. The Prince had read it through from beginning to end. He had read it again, and then again, so that its contents had almost been committed to memory. Von Salzinger accepted it in a silence which was the effect of his superior's example. And, still following that example, he read it through with the closest attention. Meanwhile Von Berger's dispassionate gaze was turned upon the brilliant sunlight pouring in through the wide and lofty window, which opened out upon a vista of parkland and rolling grass.