Mad Barbara by Warwick Deeping

The door at the foot of the tower stood open, and John Gore plunged in with his sword forward and his pistol at the cock. The place was as dark as a pit, and he thrust out right and left with the sword, the point ringing against the walls till he found where the gap of the stairs opened. He went up silently, for he was in his stockings, but there was more grimness in that swift and silent climb than any clangor and clash that armed men might have made. His blood was up, the devil awake in him, and the spirit of murder howling in his ears. He seemed to see all the gross, smothering horror of the scene above, and he set his teeth as he wondered whether he would come too late.

A quick shuffling sound came down to him in the darkness. A hurrying human thing was close to him, and John Gore challenged and lunged without pity. There was a hard sob, and a dim shadow of a figure dragged down his sword's point in its fall. He freed the blade and went on with hardly a thought, as a stormer pushes on over the bodies in the throat of a "breach. " A sudden gleam of light slanted down the stair, and he heard the tread of heavy feet and a harsh shout of "Nance! Nance! " Rounding the last twist of the stair, John Gore came upon a man with a white cloth over his face, standing on the landing outside Barbara's room and holding a shaded lantern in his hand.