She was thinking of him with pity and horror in her heart, not love.
A question was beginning to form itself vaguely in her troubled mind.
Were all of them to die as Chase had died?
Suddenly there came to her ears the sound of something swishing through the air.

An instant later, a solid object fell almost at her feet.

She started back with a cry of alarm.

A broad shaft of light crossed the garden, thrown by the lamps in the upper hall of the chateau.

Her eyes fell upon a wriggling, snakelike thing that lay in this path of light.
Fascinated, almost paralysed, she watched it for a full minute before realising that it was the end of a thick rope, which lost itself in the heavy shadows at the cliff end of the garden.