But it was not this alone which held Jack's gaze riveted and caused a
smothered cry of surprise to burst from his lips. Involuntarily he
stepped from the shelter of a pillar behind which he had been
standing.
For approaching along the balcony of the left wing, Jack saw the
loved figure of his father engrossed in conversation with a small,
dark man of patrician bearing.
It was instinct rather than conscious thought which checked the cry on
his lips. Instinct told him a shout would mean betrayal, and the
shattering of his desperate plan.
Yet careless of who might see, he stood there looking up at the
distant figure until it was lost to view, cut off by the outjutting
roof above him. That one sight, however, lifted a vast load from the
boy's mind. His father, at least, was not mistreated. Evidently the
man with him was the Don. And as evidently his father was treated more
as guest than prisoner.
At sound of a footstep on the marble tiles behind him, Jack returned
with a start to a realization of his surroundings and the perils of
his position. Assuming a carelessness which he was far from feeling,
he refrained from turning about but instead started walking for that
left wing ahead in the tower of which he knew his father to be lodged.
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