The Thing Beyond Reason A COMPLETE SHORT NOVEL—THE STORY OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE THAT LED LEXY MORAN TO A HOUSE OF TRAGEDY AND MYSTERY IN THE SUBURBS OF NEW YORK (continued 2)

“You’re a dear!” said Lexy warmly.

She said this because she thought it, and without the least calculation. She liked Mrs. Royce, and when she liked people she told them so. That was what made people love her.

Mrs. Royce was completely won.

“I’m real glad to do it for you,” she said. “I won’t bother you, neither, while you’re working. I know how it is with writing. My cousin, now—her husband was writing for the movies, an’ he was that upset if he was disturbed!”

Still conversing with great affability, Mrs. Royce led the reluctant writer upstairs to the small room prepared for her, and shut her in. Lexy sat down in a chair before the workmanlike table, and grinned ruefully. She had said she was a writer, and now she had to be one.

“Well,” she reflected, “here’s a chance to write to Mr. Houseman, anyhow.”

She never had the least difficulty in writing letters. For one reason, she never bothered about them unless she had something to say, and then she said it, briefly and lucidly, and was done. She told Mr. Houseman all she knew about Caroline’s disappearance, and explained that she had gone out to Wyngate in the hope of picking up some trace of her.

“Of course,” she wrote, “I don’t know whether I’ll still be here when you get back. If I’ve gone, I’ll leave my address with Mrs. Royce, in case you should want to communicate with me.”

This was admirable, so far; but, reading it over, Lexy was not satisfied. She remembered the misery, the trouble and anxiety, in Mr. Houseman’s blue eyes. She imagined him sailing the seas, bitterly hurt because he thought Caroline had changed her mind. She thought of him coming back and getting this letter, to revive all his alarm for Caroline. This wasn’t, after all, a business letter. She took up her pen again, and added:

I think I can imagine how you feel about all this, and I am more sorry than I can tell you. I hope we shall meet soon.

This last phrase rather astonished her. She hadn’t meant to write just that. She picked up the letter, intending to tear it up and write another; but she thought better of it.

“No!” she said to herself. “Let it stay. It’s true; why shouldn’t I hope that we’ll meet again?”

So she addressed the letter and sealed it, and then sat looking out of the window at the rain. It was a hopeless sort of rain, faint and fine—a hopeless, melancholy world, without color or promise.

“I’d better take a walk!” thought Lexy, springing up.

Before she reached the door there was a knock, and Mrs. Royce put her head in.

“He’s here!” she whispered. “He’s asking for you.”

“Who?” cried Lexy.

“Hush! The doctor!” answered Mrs. Royce. “You could ’a’ knocked me down with a feather!”

XI

Feathers would not have knocked down the sturdy Lexy, however. On the contrary, she was pleased and interested by this utterly unexpected visit. The sinister doctor here, in this house, and asking for her! She started promptly toward the stairs.

“Miss Moran!” cautioned the landlady, in a whisper. “Don’t tell him nothing!”

“Tell him!” said Lexy. “But I haven’t anything to tell!”

“Well, you’d best be very careful!” said Mrs. Royce.

With this solemn warning in her ears, Lexy descended the stairs. She saw Dr. Quelton standing in the hall, hat in hand, waiting for her. The doctor was rather a disappointment. He was not the dark, sinister figure he should have been. He was a big man, powerfully built, with a clumsy stoop to his tremendous shoulders. His heavy, clean-shaven face would have been an agreeable one if it had not been for its expression, but that expression was not at all an alarming or dangerous one. It was an expression of the most utter and hopeless boredom.

He came toward her.

“Miss Moran?” he asked.

Even his voice was listless, and his glance was without a spark of interest.

“Yes,” said she.

“My brother-in-law, Captain Grey, told us you were here, and I did myself the honor of calling,” he went on.

“You certainly were quick about it!” thought Lexy. “Captain Grey couldn’t have reached his sister’s house an hour ago, and it’s three miles from here. Won’t you come into the sitting room?” she asked aloud.

“Thank you,” he replied, and followed Lexy into the decorous and dismal room.

He sat down opposite her in a small chair that cracked under his weight, and he smiled a bored and extinguished smile.

“A writer, I believe?” he said.

“Well, yes, in a way,” answered Lexy, growing a little red.

“My wife and I were very much interested,” he went on, with as little interest as a human being may well display. “We don’t have many newcomers here. It’s a very quiet place.”

His apathetic manner exasperated Lexy.

“But I don’t care how quiet it is,” she observed.

“My wife and I like a quiet life,” he said. “My wife asked me to explain, Miss Moran, that she is something of a recluse. Her health prevents her from calling upon you; but she wished me to say that she would be very happy to see you at the Tower, whenever it may be convenient for you to call, any afternoon after four o’clock.”

“Thank you,” replied Lexy. “Please thank Mrs. Quelton. I shall be very pleased to come.”

And now why didn’t he go away? This visit was apparently a painful duty for him. He had delivered his message, and yet he lingered.

“A very quiet place,” he repeated; “but perhaps you are not sociably inclined?”

“Oh, I’m sociable enough—at times,” said Lexy.

“But at the present time you prefer solitude? For the purposes of your work? As a change from the stimulating atmosphere of the city?”

Any mention of her work made Lexy uncomfortable.

“Well, yes,” she answered in a dubious tone.

“I lived in New York myself for a number of years,” he went on. “I wonder if you—may I ask what part of the city you lived in, Miss Moran?”

Lexy hesitated, and she meant him to see that she hesitated. After all, however, it was not an unnatural or impertinent question, and she couldn’t very well refuse to answer it.

“In the East Sixties, near the park,” she said. “It wasn’t my own home, though—I was a companion,” she added.

She always liked people to know that. She was far from being cynical, but she was aware that this information made a difference—to some people.

She was astonished to see the difference it made in Dr. Quelton. He raised his black, weary eyes to her face and stared at her with unmistakable insolence.

“Ah!” he said. “I see! I thought so!”

There was a moment’s silence.

“And you’ve come to Wyngate to—er—to write?” he went on. “Very interesting—very!”

Lexy felt her cheeks grow hot. She wished with all her heart that she had not involved herself in that stupid falsehood. It humiliated her so much that she couldn’t answer Dr. Quelton with her usual spirit. He noticed her confusion—no doubt about that.

“Poetry, perhaps?” he suggested.

“No!” said Lexy vehemently. “Not poetry!”

He leaned forward a little, looking directly into her face.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you write detective stories?”

“Yes!” said Lexy.

The doctor rose.

“The solving of mysteries!” he said, with his unpleasant smile. “That makes very interesting fiction!”

Lexy rose, too. His tone, his manner, exasperated her almost beyond endurance. She felt an ardent desire to contradict everything he said. What is more, she was in no humor to hear mystery stories made light of. She had had enough of that—first Mrs. Enderby pretending there was no mystery, and then Mr. Houseman going off and pretending it was solved, so that she was left alone to do the best she could. Wasn’t she in a mystery story at this very minute, and without a single promising clew to guide her?

“There are plenty of mysteries that aren’t fiction,” she observed curtly.

“But they are never solved,” said Dr. Quelton.

“Never solved?” said Lexy. “But lots of them are! You can read in the newspapers all the time about crimes that—”

“The mystery of a crime is never solved,” the doctor blandly proceeded. “Never! Let us say, for example, that a murder is committed. The police investigate, they arrest some one. There is a trial, the jury finds that the suspect is guilty, the judge sentences him, and he is executed. Public opinion is satisfied; but as a matter of fact, nothing whatever has been solved. It is all guesswork. Not one living soul, not one member of the jury, not the judge, not the executioner, really knows that the accused man was guilty. They think so—that is all. What you call a ‘solution’ is merely a guess, based upon probabilities.”

Lexy considered this with an earnest frown.

“Well,” she said at last, “quite often criminals confess.”

“In the days of witchcraft trials,” said he, “it was not uncommon for women to come forward voluntarily and confess to being witches. In the course of my own practice I have known people to confess things they could not possibly have done. No!” He shook his head and smiled faintly. “An acquaintance with the psychology of the diseased mind makes one very skeptical about confessions, Miss Moran.”

This idea, too, Lexy took into her mind and considered for a few minutes.

“Even an eyewitness,” Dr. Quelton went on, “is entirely unreliable. Any lawyer can tell you how completely the senses deceive one. Three persons can see the same occurrence, and each one of the three will swear to a quite different impression. Each one may be entirely honest, entirely convinced that he saw or heard what never took place.”

“Do you mean that you think it’s never possible to find out who’s guilty?”

“Never,” he replied agreeably. “It can never be anything but a guess, as I said, based upon probabilities. Human senses, human judgment, human reason, are all pitifully liable to error.”

Lexy was silent for a time, thinking over this.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said slowly, “about the senses, and judgment, and reason. Perhaps their evidence isn’t always to be trusted; but there’s something else.”

“Something else?” he repeated. “Something else? And what may that be?”

Lexy looked up at him. There was a smile on his heavy, pallid face, aloof and contemptuous; but she was chiefly concerned just then in trying to put into words her own firm conviction, more for her own benefit than for his. It was not reason that had brought her here to look for Caroline, it was not reason that sustained her.

“There’s something else,” she said again, with a frown. “There’s a way of knowing things without reason. It’s—I don’t know just how to put it, but it’s a thing beyond reason.”

He laughed, and she thought she had never heard a more unpleasant laugh.

“Certainly!” he said. “Beyond reason lies—unreason.”

“I don’t mean that,” said Lexy. “I mean—”

She stopped, because he had abruptly turned away and was walking toward the door. She stood where she was, amazed by this unique rudeness; but in the doorway he turned.

“The thing beyond reason!” he said, almost in a whisper. Then, with a sudden and complete change of manner, he went on: “It has been very interesting to meet you, Miss Moran. My wife will enjoy a visit from you. Any afternoon, after four o’clock!” He bowed politely. “After four o’clock,” he repeated, and off he went.

Lexy stood looking at the closed door.

“Crazy?” she said to herself. “No—that’s not the word for him at all. He’s—he’s just horrible!”

XII

At half past twelve Captain Grey had not yet returned, and Mrs. Royce declared that the ham omelet would be ruined if not eaten at once; so Lexy went down to the dining room and ate her lunch alone.

The rain was still falling steadily, and the little room was dim, chilly, and, to Lexy, unbearably close. She wasn’t particularly hungry, either, after such a hearty breakfast and no exercise. She felt restless and uneasy. When Mrs. Royce went out into the kitchen to fetch the dessert, she jumped up from the table, crossed the room, and opened the window.

The wild rain blew against her face, and it felt good to her. She drew in a long breath of the fresh, damp air, and sighed with relief.

“I’m going to go out this afternoon,” she said to herself, “if it rains pitchforks! I can’t—”

Just then she caught sight of Captain Grey coming down the road. Her first impulse was to call out a cheerful salutation, but after a second glance she felt no inclination for that. He was tramping along doggedly through the rain, his hands in his pockets, his collar turned up. He was as straight and soldierly as ever, but his face was pale, with such a queer look on it!

“Oh, dear!” thought Lexy. “Something’s gone wrong! Oh, the poor soul! And he set off so happy this morning.”

She went into the hall and opened the front door for him. Filled with a motherly solicitude, she wanted to help him off with his overcoat, but he abruptly declined that.

“Am I late?” he asked. “I thought one o’clock, you know—I’m sorry.”

“Mercy, that doesn’t matter!” said Lexy. “Aren’t you going to change your shoes? You ought to. Well, then, you’d better come in and eat your lunch this minute.”

“You’re no end kind, to bother like that!” he said earnestly. “I do appreciate it!”

“Who wouldn’t be?” thought Lexy, glancing at him. “You poor soul, you look as if you’d seen a ghost!”

He took his place at the table, and Lexy sat down opposite him, her chin in her hands, anxiously waiting for him to begin to tell her what had happened.

“Beastly day, isn’t it?” he said, with an obvious effort to speak cheerfully.

“Awful!” agreed Lexy.

“And yet, you know,” he went on, “I rather like a walk on a day like this. The country about here is pretty, don’t you think?”

Lexy glanced around, to make sure that Mrs. Royce had closed the door behind her.

“Captain Grey!” she said, leaning across the table. “Tell me, did you see her?”

He did not meet Lexy’s eyes. He was looking down at his plate with that curious dazed expression in his face.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I saw her.”

Lexy was hurt and disappointed by his manner. Evidently he didn’t want to tell her anything, didn’t want to talk at all. Very well—the only thing for her to do was to maintain a dignified silence. She did so for almost ten minutes, but then nature got the upper hand.

“Well?” she demanded. “Was everything all right?”

“All right?” he repeated. “Oh, rather! Oh, yes, thanks—absolutely all right.”

This was too much for Lexy.

“That’s good,” she said frigidly. “I’m going upstairs now, to write some letters.”

Her tone aroused him. He sprang to his feet, very contrite.

“No! Look here!” he said. “Please don’t run away! I—I want to talk to you, but it’s a bit hard. You can’t imagine what it’s like to see one of your own people, you know—after such a long time.”

Lexy sat down again.

“Was she as you expected her to be?” she asked.

“I don’t quite know what I expected,” he said. “Only—”

He paused for a long time, and Lexy waited patiently, for she felt very sorry for Captain Grey. At first sight she had imagined him to be haughty, stiff, and aloof. She knew now that he was a very sensitive man. He was terribly moved, and he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t.

She tried to help him.

“Dr. Quelton came to see me this morning,” she observed.

“Yes—he said he would. Very decent sort of chap, don’t you think?”

“Do you mean you liked him?” asked Lexy.

Captain Grey was a little startled by this Yankee notion of liking a person at first sight.

“Well, you see,” he said, “I’ve only met him once; but he seems to me a very decent sort of chap. He’s clever, you know, and—and so on, and my sister seems very happy with him.”

“Happy?”

“Yes. I’ve been an ass, imagining all sorts of silly rot. She’s not very strong, I’m afraid, but she’s happy, and—well, you know, their life out there is lonely, of course, but there’s something about it, rather—rather charming, you know. I’d like you to see it for yourself. I was speaking about you to Muriel. She wants to know you, and I think you’d like her. Would you come out there to tea with me this afternoon?”

“Yes!” cried Lexy, with a vehemence that surprised him.

There was nothing in the world she wanted more at that moment than to see Captain Grey’s sister and to visit Dr. Quelton’s house. She didn’t exactly know why, and she didn’t care, but she wanted to.

Her trunk had not yet arrived. Indeed, she had only sent to Mrs. Enderby’s for it that morning, but she was able to make herself presentable with what she had in her bag, and excitement gave her an added charm. She was in high spirits, gay and sparkling, so pretty and so lively that Captain Grey was quite dazzled.

He had engaged the one and only taxi. After they were settled in it, and on their way along the muddy road, he said:

“I say, Miss Moran, are there many American girls like you?”

“No!” replied Lexy calmly. “I’m unique.”

“I can believe that!” he said. “I’ve never seen any one like you. I was telling Muriel how much I hope that you and she will hit it off. It would be a wonderful thing for her to have a friend like you in this place.”

Something in his tone made Lexy turn serious. He was speaking as if she was simply a nice girl he had happened to meet, as if she had nothing to do but go out to tea and make agreeable friendships.

“Yes,” she said, “but I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I certainly haven’t accomplished much so far.”

He was silent, and to Lexy his silence was very eloquent.

“I came here for a definite purpose,” she told him. “I haven’t forgotten that, and I’m not likely to forget it.”

“I know,” said he, “but—”

“But,” interrupted Lexy, “I know very well what you’re thinking—that it’s a wild-goose chase, and that I’m a young idiot. Isn’t that it?”

“I don’t mean that,” he protested; “only—don’t you see?”

“I don’t!” Lexy grimly denied. “You’ve thought over the talk we had last night, and you’ve decided that it was all nonsense.”

“No, Miss Moran—not nonsense; but we were both a bit tired then, and perhaps a bit overwrought.”

“All right!” said Lexy. “Don’t go on! No—please drop it. I’ve talked too much, anyhow. From now on I’m not going to talk to any one about my little job. I’m going to go ahead in my own way, alone.”

“You can’t,” said Captain Grey firmly. “I’m here, you know.”

This did not appease Lexy, and she remained curt and silent all the rest of the way. For a couple of miles the taxi went on along a broad, smooth highway; then it turned off down a rough lane, bordered by dark woodland, and entirely deserted. The rain drummed loud on the leather top of the cab, the wind came sighing through the gaunt pines and the slender, shivering birches; but when there was a lull, she heard another sound, a sound familiar to her from childhood and yet always strange, always heart-stirring—the dim, unceasing thunder of the sea.

“Is the doctor’s house near the shore?” she inquired.

“Yes—just on the beach.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Lexy. “Our old house, where I was born, was on the shore, and on days like this I used to love to go out and walk with father. I love the sea so!”

Captain Grey gave her an odd look, which she didn’t understand. Perhaps that was just as well, for her words and her voice had troubled the young man to an unreasonable degree. He wished he could say something to comfort her. He wished he could offer her the sea as a gift, for instance; and that would have been a mistake, because Lexy did not like to be pathetic.

Just at that moment, however, the taxi turned into a driveway, and there was the house—the Tower. Lexy was disappointed. The name had called up in her mind the picture of a gloomy edifice of gray stone, more or less medieval, and altogether somber and forbidding; and this was nothing in the world but a rather shabby old house, badly in need of paint, and forlorn enough in the rain, but very ordinary and very ugly. Even the tower, which had given the place its romantic name, was only a wooden cupola with a lightning rod on top of it.

“Can you get a good view of the sea from the windows?” Lexy demanded.

“Well, not from the library, where I was,” he answered; “but perhaps—”

“Captain Grey, I want to get out! I want to run down on the beach for one instant!”

“In this rain?” he protested. “You can’t!”

“I’m not made of sugar,” said Lexy scornfully, “I’ve got to run down there just for an instant, before I go in.”

“But, I say, your nice little hat, you know!”

Lexy pulled off the nice little hat and laid it on his knee. Then she rapped on the window, the driver stopped, and Lexy opened the door.

“No! Look here! Please, Miss Moran!” cried Captain Grey. “Very well, then, if you will go, I’ll go with you!”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” said Lexy. “I feel as if I’d like to go alone just for one look. You know how it is, sometimes. I haven’t had even a smell of the sea for so long; and it reminds me—”

She looked at him with a shadowy little smile, and he did understand.

“All right!” he said. “Then slip on my coat.”

She did so, to oblige him, and off she went, half running, down the lane, in the direction of the sound of the surf. Captain Grey looked after her—such an absurd little figure in that aquascutum of his that almost touched the ground! He watched her till she was out of sight; then he sat down in the cab and lit a cigarette.

He thought about her, but Lexy had forgotten him. She found herself on a desolate stretch of wet sand, with the gray sea tossing under a gray sky. She smelled the hearty, salt smell, she remembered old things, sad and sweet. Tears came into her eyes, and she felt them on her cheeks, warm, salt as the sea. If only she could go running home, back to the house where her mother used to wait for her! If only she could find her father’s big, firm hand clasping her own!

“I mustn’t be like this,” she said to herself. “Daddy would feel ashamed of me.”

In a cavernous pocket of the captain’s overcoat she found a handkerchief. She dried her eyes with it, and turned back. The Tower faced the lane, and the left side of it fronted the beach, rising stark and high from the sands. She looked up at it. On the first floor a sun parlor had been built out, and through the windows she could see a woman sitting there in a deck chair.

“I suppose that’s Muriel,” she thought, with a reawakening of her lively interest.

She came a little nearer. The woman was wearing a negligee and a coquettish little silk cap. Her back was turned toward Lexy. She lay there motionless, as if she were asleep.

Lexy drew closer. The woman turned, straightened up in the chair, and rose. A shiver ran along Lexy’s spine. She stopped and stared and stared.

The woman had raised her thin arms above her head, stretching. Then, for a moment, she stood in an odd and lovely pose, with her hands clasped behind her head. Oh, surely no one else ever stood like that! That figure, that attitude—it couldn’t be any one else!

“Caroline!” cried Lexy. “Caroline!”

The woman did not hear. She was moving toward the long windows of the room, and her every step, every line of her figure, was familiar and unmistakable to Lexy.

“Caroline!” she cried, running forward across the wet sand. “Wait! Wait for me, Caroline!”

A hand seized her arm. With a gasp, she looked into the pale, heavy face of Dr. Quelton. He was smiling.

“Miss Moran!” he said. “This is an unexpected pleasure—”

Lexy jerked her arm away, and looked up at the windows of the sun parlor. The woman had gone.

“I saw Caroline!” she said. “In there!”

“Caroline?” he repeated. “I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, Miss Moran, that you’ve made a mistake.”

Their eyes met. In that instant, Lexy knew. He was still smiling with an expression of bland amusement at this extraordinary little figure in the huge coat; but he was her enemy, and she knew it.

“Suppose we go on?” he suggested. “I believe it’s raining.”

They turned and walked side by side around the house to the front door, where Captain Grey stood waiting.

“I say!” he exclaimed anxiously. “Your hair—your shoes—you’ll take a chill, Miss Moran!”

“I feel anxious about Miss Moran myself,” said Dr. Quelton. “I’m afraid she’s a very imprudent young lady.”

But Lexy said nothing.

XIII

The doctor’s library had a charm of its own. It was a big room, careless, a little shabby, but furnished in fastidious taste and with a friendly sort of comfort. A great wood fire was blazing on the hearth, and Dr. Quelton drew up an armchair before it for Lexy.

“There!” he said. “Now you’ll soon be warm and dry. Anna!”

“Yes, sir!” the parlor maid responded from the doorway.

“Please tell Mrs. Quelton that Miss Moran is here.”

“Yes, sir!” repeated the maid, and disappeared.

Lexy sat down. Captain Grey stood, facing her, leaning one elbow on the mantelpiece. Dr. Quelton paced up and down, his hands clasped behind him. He looked like a dignified middle-aged gentleman in his own home.

A door opened somewhere in the house, and for a moment Lexy heard the homely and familiar sound of an egg-beater whirring and a cheerful Irish voice inquiring about “them potaters.” It was surely a cheerful and pleasant enough setting; but Lexy did not find it so.

“I saw Caroline!” she insisted to herself. “I don’t care what any one says. I saw Caroline!”

A strange sensation of pain and dread oppressed her. What should she do? Whom should she tell?

“Captain Grey,” she thought; “but not now. It’s no use now. Dr. Quelton would deny it. I’ll have to wait until we get out of here; and then, perhaps, it ’ll be too late. He knows I saw her. Something—something horrible—may happen!”

A shiver ran through her.

“Miss Moran is nervous,” said the doctor, with solicitude.

“I’m not!” replied Lexy sharply.

“I hope it’s not a chill,” said Captain Grey.

“I should be inclined to think it nervousness,” said Dr. Quelton. “Our landscape here is lonely and depressing, and Miss Moran has the artist’s temperament, impressionable, high-strung.”

“Not I!” declared Lexy, in a tone that startled Captain Grey. “Lonely places don’t bother me. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Oh!” said the doctor. “But here’s Mrs. Quelton. Muriel, this is Miss Moran, the young writer of fiction.”

Mrs. Quelton was coming down the long room, a beautiful woman, dark and delicate, with a sort of plaintive languor in her manner. She held out her hand to Lexy.

“I’m so glad you’ve come!” she said. “George has told me so much about you—the first American girl he’s known!”

She glanced at her brother with a little smile. Lexy glanced at him, too; and she was surprised and very much touched by the look on his face. He couldn’t even smile. His face was grave, pale, almost solemn, and he was regarding his sister with something like reverence.

“Oh, poor fellow!” thought Lexy. “Poor lonely fellow! It’s such a wonderful thing for him to find his sister—some one of his own. I only hope she’s as nice as she looks.”

This thought caused her to turn toward her hostess again. She was beautiful, and in a gentle and gracious fashion, and yet—

“I don’t know,” thought Lexy. “There’s something—she doesn’t look ill—perhaps she’s just lackadaisical; but certainly she’s not simple and easy to understand. She must know about Caroline Enderby. The thing is, would she help me, or—”

Or would Mrs. Quelton also be her enemy? Lost in her own thought, Lexy sat silent. She had, indeed, certain grave faults in social deportment. The head mistress of the finishing school she had attended had often said to her:

“Alexandra, it is absolutely inexcusable to give way to moods in the company of other people!”

In theory Lexy admitted that this was true, but it made no difference. If she didn’t feel inclined to talk, she didn’t talk. It was so this afternoon. She merely answered when she was spoken to—which was not often, for Dr. Quelton was asking his brother-in-law questions about India, and Mrs. Quelton seemed no more desirous to talk than Lexy was. What is more, Lexy felt certain that the doctor’s wife was not listening to the talk between the two men, but, like herself, was thinking her own thoughts.

The parlor maid wheeled the tea cart in, and Mrs. Quelton roused herself to pour the tea and to make polite inquiries, in her plaintive tone, as to what her guests wanted in the way of cream and sugar. The maid vanished again, and Dr. Quelton passed about the cups and plates.

“It’s China tea,” he observed. “I import it myself. It has quite a distinctive flavor, I think.”

Captain Grey praised it, and Lexy herself found it very agreeable. She sipped it, staring into the fire, glad to be let alone. Behind her she could hear Captain Grey talking about the Ceylon tea plantations. His voice sounded so pathetic!

“Another cup, Miss Moran?” asked Mrs. Quelton.

“Yes, thank you,” answered Lexy, and the doctor brought it to her.

Poor Captain Grey and his precious, new-found sister! The sound of his voice brought tears to her eyes.

“But this is idiotic!” she thought, annoyed and surprised.

Still the tears welled up. She gulped down the rest of her tea hastily, hoping that it would steady her, but it did not help at all. Sobs rose in her throat, and an immense and formless sorrow came over her.

“This has got to stop!” she thought, in alarm. “I can’t be such a chump!”

She turned to Mrs. Quelton.

“Are you going to grow any—” she began, but her voice was so unsteady that she had to stop for a moment. “Any flowers in—in your—g-garden?”

The question ended in a loud and unmistakable sob. They all turned to look at her, startled and anxious.

She made a desperate effort to regain control of herself.

“S-snapdragon,” she said. “So—so p-pretty!”

Then, suddenly, all her defenses gave way. The teacup fell from her hand and was shattered on the floor, and, burying her head in her arms, she cried as she had never cried in her life.

Mrs. Quelton stood beside her, one hand resting on Lexy’s shoulder. Captain Grey was bending over her, profoundly disturbed. She tried to speak, but she could not.

“Miss Moran!” said Dr. Quelton solicitously. “Will you allow me to give you a mild sedative?”

“No!” she gasped. “No—I want to go home!”

“I’ll telephone for the taxi,” suggested Captain Grey. “He wasn’t coming back until half past five.”

“Unfortunately we have no telephone,” said the doctor; “but I’ll drive Miss Moran home.”

“No! I want to walk.”

“Not in this rain,” the doctor protested, “and in your overwrought condition.”

“I must!” She got up, the tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I must!” she said wildly. “Let me go! Please let me go!”

The doctor turned to Captain Grey. In the midst of her unutterable misery and confusion, Lexy still heard and understood what he was saying.

“In a case of hysteria—better to humor her—the exercise and the fresh air may help her.”

The doctor’s wife helped Lexy with her hat and coat. She was very gentle, very kind, and genuinely concerned for her unhappy little guest. Lexy remembered afterward that Mrs. Quelton kissed her; but at the moment nothing mattered except to get away, to get out of that house into the fresh air.

Without one backward glance she set off at a furious pace, splashing through the puddles, almost running. Captain Grey kept easily by her side with his long, lithe stride. Now and then he spoke to her, but she could not trust herself to answer just yet. The storm within her was subsiding. From time to time a sob broke from her, but the tears had stopped.

And now she was beginning to think.

Twilight had come early on this rainy day, and it was almost dark before they reached the end of the lane. Lexy slackened her pace. Then, as they came to the corner of the highway, she stopped and laid her hand on her companion’s sleeve.

“Captain Grey!” she said.

He looked down at her, but it was too dark to see what expression there was on her pale face. He was vastly relieved, however, by the steadiness of her voice.

“Captain Grey!” she said again. “If I told you something—something very important—would you believe me?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he answered hastily. “Of course, I would always believe you; but I wish you wouldn’t try to talk about anything important just now, you know. Let’s wait a bit, eh?”

Lexy smiled to herself in the dark—a smile of extraordinary bitterness. He wouldn’t believe her if she told him about Caroline. He would think she was hysterical. She saw quite plainly that by this strange outburst she had lost his confidence.

She could in no way explain her sudden breaking down. Such a thing had never happened to her before. She could not understand it, but she was in no doubt about the unfortunate consequences of it. She was discredited.

XIV

Lexy sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped loosely before her, her bright head bent, her eyes fixed somberly upon nothing; and she could see nothing—not one step of the way that lay ahead of her. She could not think what she ought to do next. For the first time in her life, she had a feeling of utter confusion and dismay.

“It’s because I’m so tired,” she said to herself. “I’ve never been really tired out before.”

But that in itself was a cause for alarm. Why should she feel like this, so exhausted and depressed? Horrible thoughts came to her. Dr. Quelton had called her nervous, high-strung, hysterical. Was that because he had seen in her something which she herself had never suspected? Was she hysterical? Mrs. Enderby had laughed at her. Mr. Houseman had gone away, satisfied with his own solution. Captain Grey, chivalrous and kindly as he was, had obviously lost interest in her affairs. Nobody believed in her. Was it because every one could see—

She remembered the intolerable humiliation of the day before, her wild outburst of tears in the Queltons’ house. Even in her childhood she had never done such a thing before.

“What does it mean?” she asked herself in terror. “What is the matter with me? Is this whole thing just a delusion? I came here to find Caroline, and I thought—I thought I did see her. Am I mad?”

That was the awful thing that had lain in ambush in her mind ever since yesterday, that had haunted her restless sleep all night. She had not admitted it, but it had been there every minute. All her actions, all her words, to-day, had the one object of showing Mrs. Royce and Captain Grey how entirely normal and sensible she was.

“That’s what they always do!” she whispered with dry lips.

All day, hiding her terror and weakness, talking to Mrs. Royce, sitting at the lunch table and talking and laughing with Captain Grey, trying to make them believe her quite cheerful and untroubled—and all the time perhaps they knew. Perhaps they were humoring her!

She sprang up and went over to the window. The sun was beginning to sink in a tranquil sky. It had been a beautiful day, but Lexy felt too weary and listless to go out. She remembered now that both Captain Grey and the landlady had urged her to do so, that they had both said it would do her good. Then they must have noted that something was wrong with her. What did they think it was? Did she look—

She crossed the room and stood before the mirror. The rays of the setting sun fell upon her hair, turning it to copper and gold. It seemed to her to shine with a strange light about her pallid little face. Her eyes seemed enormous, somber, and terrible.

She covered her face with her hands and flung herself on the bed, sick and desperate. She could not see any one, could not speak to any one. When a knock came at her door, she thrust her fingers into her ears and lay there, with her eyes shut tight, trembling from head to foot; but the knocking went on until she could endure it no longer.

“Yes?” she said, sitting up.

“Supper’s all on the table!” said Mrs. Royce’s cheerful voice.

“I don’t want any supper to-night, thank you,” replied Lexy.

Mrs. Royce expostulated and argued for a time, but she could not persuade Lexy even to unlock the door; and at last, with a worried sigh, she went downstairs again.

The room was quite dark now, and the wind blowing in through the open window felt chill; but Lexy was too tired to close the window or light the gas. She was not drowsy. She lay stretched out, limp, overpowered with fatigue, but wide awake, and with a curious certainty that she was waiting for something.

There was another knock at the door, and this time Captain Grey’s voice spoke.

“I say, Miss Moran!” he said anxiously. “You’re not ill, are you?”

“No!” she answered, with a trace of irritability. “I’m just tired.”

“But don’t you think you ought to eat something, you know? Or a cup of tea?”

“No!” she cried, still more impatiently. “I can’t. I want to rest.”

“Can you open the door for half a moment?” he asked. “I’ve some roses here that my sister sent to you. She wanted me to say—”

The door opened with startling suddenness. Lexy appeared, and took the roses out of his hand.

“Thank you! Good night!” she said, and was gone again before he quite realized what was happening.

Then he heard the key turn in the lock, and, bewildered and very uneasy, he went away.

Lexy flung the roses down on the table, not even troubling to put them into water.

“Anything to get rid of him!” she said to herself. “I want to be let alone!”

She lay down on the bed again, pulling a blanket over herself. Downstairs she could hear Mrs. Royce moving about in the kitchen, and Captain Grey’s singularly agreeable voice talking to the landlady. It seemed to her that they were in a different world, and that she was shut outside, in a black and terrible solitude.

“If I can only sleep!” she thought. “Perhaps, in the morning—”

She was beginning to feel a little drowsy now. How heavenly it would be to sleep, even for a little while! To sleep and to forget!

The wind was blowing through the dark little room, bringing to her the perfume of the roses—a wonderful fragrance. It was wonderful, but almost too strong. It was too strong. It troubled her.

“I’ll put them out on the window sill,” she murmured. “It’s such a queer scent!”

But she was too tired, too unspeakably tired. She didn’t seem able to get up, or even to move. She sighed faintly, and closed her eyes. The wind blew, strong and steady, heavy with that sweet and subtle odor.

“Look out!” cried Mr. Houseman. “She’s going about!”

Lexy laughed, and ducked down into the cockpit while the boom swung over. The little sailboat was flying over the sunny water like a bird. There was not a cloud in the pure bright sky, not a shadow in her joyous heart.

“I am so glad you came!” she said.

“Of course I came,” he answered. “I had to swim all the way from India.”

“Mercy!” cried Lexy. “That must have been dreadful! But why?”

Mr. Houseman leaned forward and whispered solemnly:

“There was a tempest in a teapot.”

This frightened her.

“Do you think there’s going to be another one?” she whispered back.

“Sure to be!” said he. “Don’t you see how dark it’s getting?”

It was getting very dark. Lexy couldn’t see his face now.

“Hold my hand!” he shouted, and she reached out for it; but she couldn’t find him at all.

“Mr. Houseman!” she cried.

There was no answer. She stared about her, numb with terror. What was it that rustled like that? What were these black, tall things that were standing motionless about her on every side?

“I’ve been dreaming,” she said to herself. “I’m in my own room, of course. If I go just a few steps, I’ll touch the wall. I’m awake now—only it’s so dark!”

And what was it that rustled like that—like leaves in the wind? What were these black, still forms about her? Trees? No—they couldn’t be trees.

In a wild panic she moved forward. Her outstretched hand touched something, and she screamed. The scream seemed to run along through the dark, leaping and rolling over the ground like a terrified animal. She tried to run after it, stumbling and panting, until her shoulder struck violently against something, and she stopped.

And into her sick and shuddering mind her old sturdy courage began to return. She tried to breathe quietly. She struggled desperately against the awful weakness that urged her to sink down on the ground and cover her eyes.

“No!” she said aloud. “I won’t! I’m here! I’m alive! I will understand! I will see!”

She was able now to draw a deep breath, and the horrible fluttering of her heart grew less. She stood motionless, waiting. It was coming back to her, that immortal, unconquerable spirit of hers. The anguish and the strange fear were passing.

“I’m here,” she said. “I’m in a wood somewhere. These are trees. What I hear are only the leaves in the wind. I don’t know where it is, or how I got here; but I’m alive and well. I can walk. I can get out of it.”

She moved forward again, quietly and deliberately. Her eyes were more accustomed to the darkness now, and she made her way through the trees, looking always ahead, never once behind her.

“The wood must end somewhere,” she said. “The morning will have to come some time. All I have to do is to go on.”

Patter, patter, patter, like little feet running behind her.

“Only the leaves on the trees,” said Lexy. “All I have to do is to go on.”

And she went on. Sometimes a wild desire to run swept over her, but she would not hasten her steps, and she would not look behind. The primeval terror of the forest pressed upon her, but she cast it away. Alone, lost, in darkness and solitude, she kept her hold upon the one thing that mattered—the honor and dignity of her own soul.

“I’m not afraid,” she said.

And then she saw a light. At first she thought it was the moon, but it hung too low, and it was too brilliant. Even then she would not run. She went on steadily toward it. In a few minutes she stepped out of the woodland upon a road—a hard, asphalt road with lights along it. It was quite empty, it was unfamiliar to her, but she would have gone down on her knees and kissed the dust of it. It was a road, and all roads lead home.

XV

There were no stars and no moon, for the sky was filled with wild black clouds flying before the wind. Lexy could not guess at the time. She had no idea where she was, but it didn’t matter. The morning would come some time, and the road would lead somewhere.

“It’s better here,” she said to herself. “I’d far, far rather be here, wherever it is, than shut up in that room with the thoughts I had!”

Those thoughts, those fears, had utterly gone from her now, but the memory of them was horrible. She shuddered at the memory of the hours she had spent locked in her room, with that monstrous dread of madness in her heart. Thank God, it had passed now! She walked along the interminable empty road, her old self again, but graver and sterner than she had ever been before in her life.

“I’ve got to understand all this,” she said to herself. “I’ve got to know what’s been the matter with me. That breakdown at the Queltons’, that awful time yesterday afternoon, and this! I suppose I’ve been walking in my sleep. I never did before. Something’s gone wrong with my nerves, terribly wrong; and I’ve got to find out why.”

She quickened her pace a little, because a trace of the old panic fear had stirred in her.

“It’s over!” she thought. “I’ll never imagine such a thing again; but I wonder if I’ll ever feel quite sure of myself again!”

For all her valiant efforts, tears came into her eyes. She had always been so proudly and honestly sure of herself, she had always trusted herself, and now—now she knew how weak, how untrustworthy she could be. Now she would always have that knowledge, and would fear that the weakness might come again.

“I don’t know whether I really did see Caroline. I can’t feel certain of anything. Perhaps I ought to give up all this and go away and rest; only I’ve no place to go. There isn’t any one I can tell.”

She straightened her shoulders and looked up at the vast, dark sky, where black clouds ran before a wind that snapped at their heels like a wolf; and the sight assuaged her. This world that lay under the open sky—the woods, the hills, and above all, the sea—was her world. It belonged to her equally with all God’s creatures. She had her part in it and her place. There was no one to whom she could turn for comfort, her faith in herself was cruelly shaken, and yet somehow she was not forsaken and helpless. Some one was coming. It was dark, but the light was coming!

She went on, her brisk footsteps ringing out clearly in the silence. The road was bordered on both sides by woods, where the leaves whispered, and there was no sign anywhere of another human being; but the road must lead somewhere. It began to go steeply uphill, and she became aware for the first time that she was very tired and very hungry, and that one of her shoes was worn through; but she had her precious money in the bag around her neck, and, if she kept on going, she couldn’t help reaching some place where she could get food and rest.

“At the top of the hill I’ll be able to see better,” she thought.

It was a long, long hill, and the stones began to hurt her foot in the worn shoe; but she got to the top, and then below her she saw the lights of a railway station.

She went down the hill at a lively trot, and it was as if she had come into a different world. Dogs barked somewhere not far off, and she passed a barn standing black against the sky. It was a human world, where people lived.

When she reached the platform, the door of the waiting room was locked, but inside she could see a light burning dimly in the ticket booth, and a clock. Half past one! With a sigh of relief, she sat down on the edge of the platform. She wouldn’t in the least mind sitting here until morning, in a place where there were lights and a clock, and she could hear a dog barking. She took off her shoe and rubbed her bruised foot, and sighed again with great content. In four hours or so somebody would come, and then she would find out where she was, and how to get back to Mrs. Royce, and Mrs. Royce’s comfortable breakfast—coffee, ham and eggs, and hot muffins.

She started up, and hastily put on her shoe again, for in the distance she heard the sound of a motor. She told herself that it would be the height of folly to stop an unknown car in this solitary place, for there were evil men abroad in the world; but there were a great many more honest ones, and if she could only get back to Mrs. Royce’s now!

She crossed the road and stood behind a big tree. The purr of the motor was growing louder and louder, filling the whole earth. Her heart beat fast, she kept her eyes upon the road, excited, but not sure what she meant to do.

It was a taxi. She sprang out into the road and waved her arms.

“Taxi!” she shouted joyously.

The car stopped with a jolt, and the driver jumped out.

“Now, then! What’s up?” he demanded suspiciously. From a safe distance, the light of an electric torch was flashed in her face. “Well, I’ll be gosh-darned!” said he. “Ain’t you the boarder up to Mrs. Royce’s?”

“Yes! I am! I am!” cried Lexy, overwhelmed with delight. “Can you take me there?”

“I can,” he replied; “but what on earth are you doing out here?”

“I got lost,” said Lexy. “Where is this, anyhow?”

“Wyngate station,” said he. “I’ll be gosh-darned! I never! Lost?”

“Yes,” said Lexy. “Aren’t you the driver who took me up the day I came here?”

“That’s me—only taxi in Wyngate. Took you out to the Queltons’, too. Hop in, miss!”

His engine had stalled, and he set to work to crank it, while Lexy stood beside him.

“Drive awfully fast, will you?” she asked.

He was too busy to answer for a moment. Then, when his engine was running again, he straightened up and looked at her.

“No, ma’am!” he said firmly. “No more of that for me! Not after what happened a while ago. No, ma’am! I had my lesson!”

“An accident?” inquired Lexy politely.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I s’pose it was; but the more I think it over, the more I dunno!”

In the brightness cast by the headlights, Lexy could see his face very well, and the look on it gave her a strange little thrill of fear. It was not a handsome or intelligent face, but it was a very honest one, and she saw, written plain upon it, a very honest doubt and dismay. Like herself, he wasn’t sure.

“It was this way,” he went on. “About three miles up Carterstown way there’s a bad piece of road. There’s a steep hill, and a crossroad cuts across the foot of it, and it’s too narrer for two cars to pass. It’s a bad piece, and I always been keerful there. I was keerful that night. I was coming along the crossroad, and I heard another car somewhere, and I sounded the horn two or three times before I come to the foot of the hill. Jest as I got there, and was turning up the hill, down comes another car, full tilt. I couldn’t git out o’ the way. There’s stone walls on both sides. I tried to back, but he crashed into me. I kind of fainted, I guess. My cab was all smashed up, and I was cut pretty bad with glass. They found me lying there about an hour after. The other fellow—he was killed.” He stopped for a minute. “If it hadn’t been fer his license number, nobody could ’a’ known who he was, he was so smashed up. Seems he was from New York, driving a taxi belonging to one of them big companies.”

“Poor fellow!” said Lexy.

“Yes,” said the other solemnly. “I kin say that, too, whatever he meant to do.”

“Meant to do?”

The countryman came a step nearer.

“I keep thinking about it,” he said in a half whisper. “This is the queer thing about it, miss. That there car didn’t start till I got to the foot of the hill! The engine was just racing, and the car wasn’t moving along—I know that. It was as if he’d been waiting up there for me, and then down he came as if he meant”—the speaker paused again—“to kill me,” he ended.

“But—” Lexy began, and then stopped.

She had a very odd feeling that this story was somehow of great importance to her, but that she must put it away, that she must keep it in her mind until later. This wasn’t the time to think about it.

“Joe,” she said, “I want to hear more about this—all about it; but not now. I’m too tired.”

He gave himself a shake, like a dog. Then he turned to her with a slow, good-natured smile.

“I guess you are!” he said. “Lucky for you I just happened to be late to-night, taking them Ainsly girls ’way out to their house after a dance. Hop in, miss!”

Lexy got in, and they set off. She leaned back and closed her eyes, but they flew open again as if of their own accord. There was something she wanted to see. Through the glass she could see Joe’s burly shoulders, a little hunched—Joe, who, like herself, wasn’t sure.

“Not now!” said something inside her. “Don’t think about that now. Try not to think at all. Wait! Something is going to happen.”

At the corner of the road leading to Mrs. Royce’s, she tapped on the window. Joe stopped the cab with a jerk, sprang down from his seat, and ran around to open the door.

“What’s the matter, miss?”

“Nothing,” said Lexy. “I’m sorry if I startled you, Joe. I thought I’d get out here and slip into the house quietly, without disturbing any one.”

Joe grinned sheepishly.

“I’ve got kind of jumpy since—that,” he said. “Howsomever, come on, miss!”

“Oh, I don’t mean to trouble you!”

“I’m going to see you safe inside that there house!” Joe declared firmly.

Grateful for his genuine kindness, Lexy made no further protest. Side by side they walked down the lane, their footsteps noiseless in the thick dust, and Joe opened the garden gate without a sound.

“I thought perhaps I could climb up that tree and get in at my window,” Lexy whispered.

“I’ll do it for you,” said Joe, “and come down and let you in by the back door.”

He was up the tree like a cat. He went cautiously along a branch, until he could reach the roof of the shed with his toes. He dropped down on the roof, and Lexy saw him disappear into her room. She went to the back door. In a minute she heard the key turn inside, and the door opened.

“Thank you ever so much, Joe!” she whispered.

But he paid no attention to her. He stood still, drawing deep breaths of the night air.

“Them roses!” he said. “The smell of ’em made me kind of sick, like. Throw ’em out, miss! Don’t go to sleep with them roses in the room!”

Lexy did not answer for a time.

“I’ll see you to-morrow, Joe,” she said. “I’ll pay you for the taxi, and have a talk with you. And thank you, Joe, ever so much!”

He touched his cap, murmured “Good night,” and off he went.

Lexy went in, locked the kitchen door behind her, and stood there, leaning against it, half dazed by the great light that was coming into her mind. She was beginning to understand! The roses—the roses with their strange and powerful fragrance! Her hysterical outburst after her tea at Dr. Quelton’s house! She was beginning to understand, not the details, but the one tremendous thing that mattered.

“He did it,” she said to herself. “He made all this happen. I didn’t just break down. I haven’t been weak and hysterical. He made it all happen!”

For a time her relief was an ecstasy. She could trust herself again. She was so happy in that knowledge that she could have shouted aloud, to waken Mrs. Royce and Captain Grey, and tell them. The monstrous burden was lifted, she was free, she was her old sturdy, trustworthy self again.

She sank into a chair by the kitchen table, staring before her into the dark, her lips parted in a smile of gratitude and delight; and then, suddenly, the smile fled. She rose to her feet, her hands clenched, her whole body rigid.

“He did it!” she said again. “It’s the vilest and most horrible thing any one can do. He tried to steal my soul. He turned me into that poor, terrified, contemptible creature. I’ll never in all my life forgive him. I’m going to find out—about that, and about Caroline. I’ll never give up trying, and I’ll never forgive him!”

She groped her way through the dark kitchen and into the hall. That was where she had first seen Dr. Quelton. She stopped and turned, as if she were looking into his face.

“I’m stronger than you!” she whispered.

XVI

Lexy came down to breakfast a little late the next morning, but in the best of spirits, and with a ferocious appetite. She had no idea how or when she had left the house the night before, but obviously neither Mrs. Royce nor Captain Grey knew anything about it, and that sufficed. She could go on eating, quite untroubled by their friendly anxiety. Let them think what they chose—it no longer mattered to her.

For, in spite of the warm liking she had for them both, she felt entirely cut off from them now. If she told them the truth, they would not believe her, they would not and could not help her. Nobody on earth would help her. She faced that fact squarely. Whatever Dr. Quelton had meant to accomplish, he had perfectly succeeded in doing one thing—he had discredited her. Anything she said now would be regarded as the irresponsible statement of a hysterical girl.

Very well! She had done with talking. She meant to act now.

“It was awfully nice of your sister to send me those roses,” she observed.

Captain Grey was standing by the window in the dining room, keeping her company while she ate. He turned his head aside as she spoke, but not before she had noticed on his sensitive face the odd and touching look that always came over it at any mention of his sister. Evidently he worshiped her, and yet Lexy was certain that he was somehow disappointed in her.

“She likes you very much,” he said.

“I’m glad,” said Lexy; “but how did you manage to keep the roses so wonderfully fresh, Captain Grey?”

“The doctor wrapped them for me—some rather special way, you know—damp paper, and then a cloth. He told me not to open them until I gave them to you. Very clever chap, isn’t he?”

“He is!” agreed Lexy, with a faint smile.

“Mind if I smoke, Miss Moran?” asked the young man. “Thanks!”

He lit a cigarette and sat down on the window sill. He was silent, and so was Lexy, for she fancied that he had something he wished to say.

“Miss Moran,” he said, at last, “you’ll go there again to see her, won’t you?”

Lexy considered for a moment.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I was afraid you might think—it’s the atmosphere of the place—I’m sure of it—that made you nervous the other afternoon. It’s something about the place, you know. I’ve felt it myself. I was afraid you wouldn’t care to go again, and I don’t like to think of her there—alone.”

“She’s not alone,” observed Lexy blandly. “She has her clever husband.”

“Yes, I know that, of course, but he’s—well, he’s not very cheery,” said the young man earnestly.

Lexy couldn’t help laughing.

“No, he’s not very cheery,” she admitted. “Of course I’ll go again—this afternoon, if you’d like.”

“I say! You are good!” he cried. “I know jolly well that you don’t want to go.”

“I do, though,” declared Lexy.

“Shall we walk over?”

“If you don’t mind,” said Lexy, “I’ll go by myself. There’s something I want to attend to first. I’ll meet you there at four o’clock.”

“Right-o!” said he. “Then you won’t mind if I go there for lunch?”

She assured him that she wouldn’t.

“You poor dear thing!” she added, to herself. His solicitude touched her. He seemed to feel himself responsible for her, as if she were a very delicate and rather weak-minded child. “You’re not very cheery, either!” she thought. And indeed he was not. His meeting with his sister had upset him badly. Ever since he had first seen her, he had been troubled and anxious and downcast. “And that’s because she’s not human,” thought Lexy. “She’s beautiful, and gentle, and all that, but she’s like a ghost. Of course it bothers him!”

She did not give much more thought to Captain Grey, however. As soon as he left the house, she went upstairs into the little sewing room, and until lunch time she was busy writing the clearest and briefest account she could of what had occurred. This she put into an envelope, which she addressed to Mr. Charles Houseman and laid it on her bureau.

“If anything happened, I suppose they’d give it to him,” she said to herself. “I’d like him to know.”

Somehow this gave her a good deal of comfort. Not that she expected anything to happen, or was at all frightened, but she did not deny that Dr. Quelton was a singularly unpleasant sort of enemy to have; and he was her enemy—she was sure of it.

Just because he had made such a point of her arriving after four o’clock, she had made up her mind to reach the house well before that hour—which would not please him. Directly after lunch she walked down to the village. She found Joe taking a nap in his cab, outside the station; and, regardless of the frightful curiosity of the villagers, she stood there talking to him for a long time. He assured her, with his sheepish grin, that he had told no one of his having met her the night before, and he willingly promised never to mention it to any one without her consent.

“I ain’t so much of a talker,” he said.

That was true, too. He was reluctant, to-day, to talk about his strange adventure with the cab on the hill; but Lexy made him answer her questions, and he wavered in no respect from his first version.

“There was an inquest, an’ all,” he said. “I’m darned glad it’s all over!”

“It isn’t!” thought Lexy. “Somehow it belongs with other things. It’s a piece of the puzzle. I can’t fit it in now, but I will some day!”

So she thanked Joe, and paid him for last night’s trip, though he made miserable and embarrassed efforts to stop her. Then she set off on her way.

It was four o’clock by her watch when she reached the garden gate. She stopped for a moment with her hand on the latch, and, in spite of herself, a little shiver ran through her. The battered old house in the tangled garden looked more menacing to-day, in the tranquil spring sunshine, than it had in the rain. It was utterly lonely and quiet. Lexy could hear nothing but the distant sound of the surf, which was like the beating of a tired heart.

Against the advice of Mrs. Enderby, almost against her own reason, she had come here to Wyngate, and to the house—and she had seen Caroline. The thing which was beyond reason had been right—so right that it frightened her; and now it bade her go on. It was like a voice telling her that her feet were set in the right path.

Lexy pushed open the gate and went in. The pleasant young parlor maid opened the door. She looked alarmed.

“I don’t know, miss,” she said. “Mrs. Quelton—I’ll go and ask the doctor.”

But from the hall Lexy had caught sight of Mrs. Quelton in the drawing-room alone, and, with an affable smile for the anxious parlor maid, she went in there.

“I’m afraid I’m awfully early—” she began, and then stopped short in amazement.

Mrs. Quelton did not welcome the visitor, did not smile or speak. She lay back in her chair and stared at Lexy with dilated eyes and parted lips. Her face was as white as paper, and strangely drawn.

“Are you ill?” cried Lexy, running toward her.

Mrs. Quelton only stared at her with those brilliant, dilated eyes. Lexy took the other woman’s hand, and it was as cold as ice, and utterly lifeless.

“Mrs. Quelton! Are you ill?” she asked again.

Somehow it added to her horror to see, as she bent over her, that the unfortunate woman’s face was ever so thickly covered with some curious sort of paint or powder. It made her seem like a grotesque and horrible marionette.

“She’s old!” thought Lexy. “She’s terribly, terribly old!”

She drew back her hand, for she could not touch that painted face. She didn’t fail in generous pity, but she could not overcome an instinctive repugnance. She turned around, intending to call the parlor maid, and there was Dr. Quelton striding down the long room with a glass in his hand. Without even glancing at Lexy, he stooped over his wife, raised her limp head on one arm, and put the glass to her lips. She drank the contents, and lay back again, with her eyes closed. Almost at once the color began to return to her ashen cheeks. Her arms quivered, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at him with a faint, dazed smile.

“You’re better now,” he said.

“Better!” she repeated. “But you were late! I needed it—I needed it!”

“Come, now!” he said indulgently. “The faintness has passed. Now you must go up to your room and rest a little before tea.”

She rose, and to Lexy’s surprise her movements showed no trace of weakness. Then, turning her head, she caught sight of the girl, and her face lighted with pleasure.

“Miss Moran!” she cried. “How very nice to—”

“Miss Moran will wait, I’m sure,” the doctor interrupted. “You must rest for half an hour, Muriel.”

Taking her by the arm, he led her down the room. In the doorway she looked back and smiled at her visitor; and if anything had been needed to steel Lexy’s heart against the doctor, that smile on his wife’s face would have done it—that poor, plaintive little smile.

Standing there by Mrs. Quelton’s empty chair, she waited for him to return, a cold and terrible anger rising in her. She heard his step in the hall, heavy and deliberate, and presently he reëntered the room and came toward her, his blank, dull eyes fixed upon nothing. She was quite certain that he wanted to put her out of his way, and that he had no scruple whatever as to methods; yet for all her youth and inexperience, her utter loneliness, she felt that she was a match for him.

“So you’ve come back to us, Miss Moran,” he said in his lifeless voice. “I was afraid you might not.”

“Oh, but why not?” Lexy inquired in a brisk and cheerful tone. “I like to come here!”

A curious thrill of exultation ran through her, for she saw on the doctor’s face the faintest shadow of a frown. He was perplexed! She baffled him, and he didn’t know whether she understood what had happened.

“It is a great pleasure to Mrs. Quelton and myself,” he said politely. Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at her. “Perhaps,” he went on, “you would be kind enough to spend a week here with us some time? Although I’m afraid you might find it very dull.”

“Oh, no!” Lexy assured him. “I’d love to come—whenever it’s convenient for you.”

They were still looking directly into each other’s eyes.

“Suppose we say to-morrow?” suggested Dr. Quelton.

“Thank you!” said Lexy. “I’ll come to-morrow!”

XVII

Captain Grey was enchanted with the idea of Lexy’s spending a week with his sister. He was going, too. Indeed, Lexy felt sure that Mrs. Quelton had wanted him to go there some time ago, and that he had refused simply on her own account. He didn’t like to leave her alone at Mrs. Royce’s, and after her nervous breakdown that afternoon nothing could have induced him to do so. He was anxious about her. He tried, with what he believed was great tact, to find out her plans for the future. He was genuinely troubled by the loneliness and uncertainty of her life.

Lexy appreciated all this, and she liked the young man very much—perhaps as much as he liked her; but the sympathetic understanding which had promised to develop on the night when they talked together in the firelight had never developed. Something had checked it. They were the best of friends, but Captain Grey never again referred to what Lexy had told him about Caroline Enderby, and about her reason for coming to Wyngate; and Lexy said nothing, either. Evidently he thought that it had been a far-fetched, romantic notion of hers, and hoped that she had forgotten all about it.

Lexy did not try to undeceive him. Her story would be too fantastic for him to believe. Nobody would believe it, except a person with absolute faith not only in her honesty but in her intelligence and clear-sightedness; and there was no such person. She was not resentful or grieved over this. She accepted it quietly, and prepared to go forward alone.

It had occurred to her lately that perhaps Mr. Houseman had been right, and that Caroline had gone away of her own free will; but she meant to know. She had seen the missing girl in Dr. Quelton’s house. Whatever the doctor might say about the false evidence of the senses, Lexy’s confidence in her own clear gray eyes was not in the least shaken. She had seen Caroline once, and she was going to see her again. That was why she was going to the Tower.

“It’ll do Muriel no end of good,” said Captain Grey, when they were in the taxi. “She’s—to tell you the truth, Miss Moran, I don’t feel altogether easy about her.”

“Why?” asked Lexy, very curious to know what he thought.

“Well,” he said, “it’s hard to put it into words; but that’s not a wholesome sort of life for a young woman, shut away like that. The doctor says her health’s not good, but it’s my opinion that if she got about more—saw more people, you know—”

Lexy felt a great pity for him. Apparently he did not even suspect what she was now sure of—that the unfortunate Muriel was hopelessly addicted to some drug, which her husband himself gave to her.

“And I hope he’ll go back to India before he does find out,” she thought. “It’s too horrible—he worships her so!”

“I’ve tried, you know,” he went on. “I wanted to take her into the city, to a concert. Seems confoundedly queer, doesn’t it, the way she’s lost interest in her music? She didn’t want to go. Then about the emerald—”

“Oh!” said Lexy, who had forgotten about the emerald.

“Chap I know designed a setting for it. It’s unset now, you know, and I thought I’d like to do that for her while I was here; but she doesn’t seem interested. I can’t even get her to let me see the thing. I’ve asked her two or three times, but she always puts me off. Do you think it bores her?”

“Perhaps it does,” replied Lexy.

“Well,” said the young man, “when a woman’s bored by a jewel like that, she’s in a bad way. I wish you could see it!”

“I wish I could,” said Lexy, and added to herself: “But I don’t think I ever shall. Probably her husband’s got it.”

They had now reached the Tower. The parlor maid opened the door for them, and at once conducted Lexy upstairs to her room.

It was a big room, with four windows, and very comfortably furnished; but even a fire burning in the grate and two or three shaded electric lamps could not give it a homelike air. There was a musty smell about it, and there was an amazing amount of dust. It was neat, but it wasn’t clean. Dust rose from the carpet when she walked, and from the chair cushions when she sat down. She saw fluff under the bed and under the bureau.

“Not much of a housekeeper, poor soul!” thought Lexy. “It’s a pity. One could do almost anything with a house like this, and all this beautiful old furniture!”

But this, after all, was a minor matter. She took off her hat, washed her hands and face, brushed her hair, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

“The house is strange to me,” she said to herself, with a grin. “I shouldn’t wonder if I turned the wrong way, and got lost!”

That was what she intended to do. She did not expect to make any sensational discoveries, for Dr. Quelton did not seem to be the sort of person who would leave clews lying about for her to pick up; but she did hope that she might see or hear something—Heaven knows what—that might bring her nearer to Caroline.

So, instead of walking toward the stairs, she turned in the opposite direction, along a hall lined with doors, all of them shut. At the end there was a grimy window, through which the sun shone in upon the dusty carpet and the faded wall paper. There was a forlorn and neglected air about the place, a stillness which made it impossible for her to believe that there was any living creature behind those closed doors.

“I wish I had cheek enough to open some of them,” she thought; “but I’m afraid I haven’t. I shouldn’t know what to say if there was some one in the room. After all, I’m supposed to be a guest. I’ve got to be a little discreet about my prying.”

She went softly along the hall to the window, to see what was out there. When she reached it, she was surprised to see that the last door was a little ajar. She looked through the crack. It wasn’t a room in there, but another hall, only a few feet long, ending at a narrow staircase.

“That must be the way to the cupola,” she thought. “I suppose a guest might go up there, to see the view.”

So she pushed the door open and went on tiptoe to the stairs; and then she heard a voice which she had no trouble in recognizing. It was Dr. Quelton’s.

“My dear young man,” he was saying. “I am not a psychologist. It has always seemed to me the greatest folly to devote serious study to the workings of so erratic and incalculable a machine as the human brain. It is a study in which there are, practically speaking, no general rules, no trustworthy data. It is, in my opinion, not a science at all, but a philosophy; and philosophy makes no appeal to me. I frankly admit that I am entirely materialistic. I care little for causes, but much for effects. Consequently, I have devoted myself to medicine, in which I can produce certain effects according to established rules.”

“But I meant more particularly the effect of—of things on the mind—the brain, you know,” said Captain Grey’s voice.

Again Lexy felt a great pity for him. He sounded very, very young in contrast to the doctor—so young and earnest, and so helpless!

“Exactly!” said the doctor. “You were, I believe, trying to lead to a suggestion that psychology might be of help to Muriel. Am I right?”

There was a moment’s pause, during which Lexy very cautiously went halfway up the stairs.

“I did think of that,” said the young man valiantly. “It seems to me she’s a bit—well, morbid, you know; and I’ve heard about those chaps—those psychoanalysts, you know. Simply occurred to me that one of them—merely a suggestion, you know. I’m not trying to be officious.”

“A psychoanalyst,” said Dr. Quelton, “is a man who analyzes the psyche, who solemnly and expensively analyzes something of whose existence he has no proof whatever.”

There was another silence.

By this time Lexy had reached the head of the stairs. Beside her was an open door, through which she could look, while she herself was hidden from view. Beyond it was, as she had thought, the cupola—a small octagonal room with windows on every side, through which the sun poured in a dazzling flood. There was nothing in the room except a white enamel table, a stool, a porcelain sink, and an open cabinet, upon the shelves of which stood rows and rows of bottles, each one labeled. Facing this cabinet, and with their backs toward the door, stood the two men—the doctor with his shoulders hunched and his hands clasped behind him, and Captain Grey, tall, slender, straight as a wand.

“Materia medica—that is my art,” said the doctor. “I have devoted my life to it, and I have learned—a little. I have made experiments. A psychologist will offer to tell you why a man has murdered his grandmother. I can’t pretend to do that, but I can give that man a tablet which will make it practically certain that he will kill his grandmother if they are left alone together for ten minutes.”

“But, I say!” protested Captain Grey.

“I can assure you that I have never made the experiment,” said Dr. Quelton, with a laugh; “but I could do it. I have learned that certain states of mind can be produced by certain drugs.”

Captain Grey turned his head, so that Lexy could see his handsome, sensitive face in profile.

“That seems to me a pretty risky thing to do,” he said, with a trace of sternness. “I hope, sir, that you don’t—”

“Don’t give Muriel drugs that make her disposed to murder her grandmother?” interrupted the doctor, with another laugh; but he must have noticed that his companion was unresponsive, for he at once changed his tone. “No,” he said gravely. “I have made a particular study of Muriel’s case. She seriously overtaxed herself in her musical studies. Don’t be alarmed, my dear fellow—there is no permanent injury. It is simply a profound mental and nervous lassitude—obviously a case where artificial stimulation is required, until the tone of the lethargic brain is restored. I am able to do for her what, I feel certain, no one else now living could do. In this bottle”—he tapped one of them with his forefinger—“I have a preparation which would make my fortune, if I had the least ambition in that direction. Five drops of that, in a glass of water, and her depression and apathy are immediately dispelled. There is an instantaneous improvement in—”

Lexy waited to hear no more. She slipped down the stairs as quietly as she had come up, hurried along the hall, and went into her own room again. Her knees gave way and she collapsed into a chair, staring ahead of her with the most singular expression on her face.

She was, in fact, looking at a new idea, and it was not a welcome one.

“No!” she said to herself. “It’s out of the question. It’s too dangerous. I can’t do it!”

But the idea remained solidly before her; and the more she contemplated it, the more was her honest heart obliged to admit the possibilities in it.

“It can’t do any real harm,” she said; “and it might do good—so much good! All right, I’m going to do it!”

Half an hour before dinner she went down into the library, a polite and quiet young guest, even a little subdued. Dr. Quelton took Captain Grey out for a stroll on the beach. He asked Lexy to go with them, but she said she would prefer to stay with Mrs. Quelton.

It was very peaceful and pleasant there in the library. The late afternoon sun shone in through the long window, touching with a benign light the shabby and graceful old furniture, picking out a glitter of gold on the binding of a book, a dull gleam of silver or copper in a corner. A mild breeze blew in, fluttering the curtains and bringing a wholesome breath of the salt air.

Mrs. Quelton was at her best. To be sure, she was not very interesting. She talked about rather banal things—about the weather, about a kitten that had run away, about the flowers in the conservatory; but Lexy, as she watched her and listened to her, could understand better than ever before what it was in Captain Grey’s sister that had so seized upon his heart. Languid and aloof as she was, there was nevertheless an undeniable charm about her, something sweet and kindly and lovable. She said, more than once, how very glad she was to have Lexy with her, and Lexy believed she meant it.

The two men had strolled out of sight.

“I must have left my handkerchief upstairs,” said Lexy. “Excuse me just a minute, please!”

But she was gone more than a minute, and when she returned her face was curiously white.

XVIII

The clock struck eleven. Lexy glanced up from her book, in the vain hope that somebody would speak, would stir, would make some move to end this intolerable evening; but nobody did.

Dr. Quelton and Captain Grey were playing chess. They sat facing each other at a small table, in a haze of tobacco smoke, silent and intent, as if they had been gods deciding human destinies. Mrs. Quelton lay on her chaise longue, doing nothing at all. If Lexy spoke to her, she answered in a low tone, but cheerfully enough; but she so obviously preferred not to talk that Lexy had taken up a book and vainly attempted to read.

It was the most wearisome and depressing evening she had ever spent. Her lively and restless spirit had often enough found it dull at the Enderbys’, and at other times and places; but this was different, and infinitely worse.

To begin with, a sense of guilt lay like lead upon her heart. She hoped and believed that what she had done was right, but she was afraid, terribly afraid, of what might result. She could not keep her eyes off Mrs. Quelton’s face. She watched the doctor’s wife with a dread and anxiety which she felt was ill concealed; and she had a chill suspicion that the doctor was watching her, in turn.

“Of course, he’s bound to find out some time,” she said to herself. “I wasn’t such a fool as to expect more than a day or two, at the very most; but I did hope there’d be time just to see—”

Again she glanced at Mrs. Quelton. Was it imagination, or was there already a faint and indefinable change?

“No, that’s nonsense,” she thought. “There couldn’t be, so soon—although I don’t know how often he gives her that priceless tonic.”

Suddenly she wanted to laugh. She had a very vivid memory of Dr. Quelton tapping that bottle with his finger, and saying to Captain Grey that he had a preparation in there which would make his fortune, if he chose.

“It wouldn’t now,” she thought, struggling with suppressed laughter.

There was nothing in that bottle now but water. Just before dinner she had run up to the cupola, emptied its contents into the sink, and filled it from the tap.

The idea had come to her when she overheard the two men talking. It had seemed to her then a plain and obvious duty to destroy the drug that so horribly affected Mrs. Quelton. Fate had allowed her to see which bottle it was. Fate gave her an undisturbed half hour when the doctor and Captain Grey were out; and, to make her plan quite perfect, the liquid in the bottle was colorless and almost without odor.

She had thought it possible that the doctor would not notice the substitution until his unhappy wife had had at least a chance to return to a normal condition. Lexy had meant to wait and to watch, and, when the moment came, to speak to Mrs. Quelton. She had thought that she could warn the doctor’s wife, and implore her not to submit to that hideous domination.

She had scarcely thought of the risk to herself, and it had not occurred to her that there might be serious risk to Mrs. Quelton. She knew almost nothing about drugs and their effects. Her one idea had been to destroy the thing that was destroying Mrs. Quelton. Only now, when it was done, did she realize the mad audacity of her act. A man like Dr. Quelton couldn’t be tricked by such a childish device. He would know what had happened, and who had done it. Very likely he had plenty more of the drug somewhere else. If he hadn’t—

“He’d feel like killing me,” thought Lexy. “I suppose he could, easily enough. He must know all sorts of nice, quiet little ways for getting rid of obnoxious people. Perhaps there was something in my dinner to-night!”

She dared not think of such a possibility.

“No!” she said to herself. “He asked me here just to show me how little I mattered. He knew I’d seen Caroline here, and he asked me to come, because he was so sure I couldn’t do anything. I’m too insignificant for him to bother with. He knows that nobody would believe what I said. He’d only have to say that I was hysterical, and Captain Grey and Mrs. Royce would be obliged to bear him out. He won’t trouble himself about me!”

She stole a glance at him, and, to her profound uneasiness, she found him staring intently at her. A shiver ran down her spine, and she turned back to her book with a very pale face. If only it had been an interesting book, so that she might have forgotten herself for a little while!

The clock struck half past eleven.

“After all, I don’t see why I have to sit here,” she thought. “I shouldn’t exactly break up the party if I went to bed.”

And she was just about to close her book when Mrs. Quelton spoke.

“I’m so tired!” she said in a high, wailing voice. “I’m so tired—so tired—so tired!”

Dr. Quelton hastily rose and came over to her chair.

“Then you must go to bed,” he said. “Come!”

He helped her to rise, and she stood, supported by his arm, her face drawn and ghastly.

“I’m so tired!” she moaned.

Captain Grey came toward her, making a very poor attempt to smile.

“Good night, Muriel!” he said, holding out his hand.

She did not answer, or even look at him. Leaning on the doctor’s arm, she went out of the room, into the hall, and up the stairs. Her wailing voice floated back to them:

“I’m so tired—so tired!”

For a moment Captain Grey and Lexy were silent. Then—

“Good God!” he cried suddenly. “I can’t stand this! I—”

Lexy came nearer to him.

“Don’t stand it!” she whispered. “Take her away! Can’t you see? Take her away!”

“How can I? Her husband—she doesn’t want to go.”

“Make her! Oh, can’t you see? He’s giving her some horrible drug!”

“You mustn’t be alarmed,” said Dr. Quelton’s voice from the hall. They both looked at him with a guilty start, but his blank eyes were staring past them, at nothing. “It is unfortunate,” he said. “The little excitement of this visit—”

He walked past them into the room and over to the table, where his pipe lay among the chessmen. He lit it deliberately and stood smoking it, with one arm resting on the mantelpiece.

“In her present highly nervous condition,” he went on, “the little excitement of this visit has proved too much for her. I shall drive over to the hospital and fetch a nurse—”

“A nurse!” cried the young man. “Then she’s—”

“There is absolutely no occasion for alarm, as I told you before. A few days’ rest and quiet—”

“Look here, sir!” said Captain Grey. “It seems to me—I’ve no wish to be offensive, or anything of that sort, but it seems right to me”—he paused for a moment—“to get a second opinion.”

“I shouldn’t advise it,” replied the doctor blandly.

“Possibly not, sir; but perhaps you would be willing to oblige me to that extent. I don’t want to insist—”

“I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

There was a faint flush on the young man’s dark face.

“Nevertheless—” he began, but again the doctor interrupted him.

“My dear young man,” he said, “you oblige me to be frank. I should have preferred a discreet silence; but as you are obviously determined to make the matter as difficult as possible, you must hear the truth. For some years your sister has been addicted to the use of certain drugs. When I discovered this, I set about trying to cure the addiction. You probably have no idea what that means. I venture to say that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—more difficult in the entire field of medicine. I have been working on the case for more than a year, and I have made distinct progress; but it will be some time before the cure is completed, and I can assure you that it never will be unless I am left undisturbed. There is no other man now living who can do what I am doing.”

He spoke gravely and coldly, and his blank eyes were fixed upon Captain Grey with a sort of sternness; but Lexy had a curious impression—more than an impression, a certainty—that within himself Dr. Quelton was laughing.

“If you care to take another doctor into your confidence,” he went on, “I can scarcely refuse permission; but you will regret it.”

The young man said nothing. He turned away and stood by the open window, looking out into the dark garden. Lexy waited for a moment. Then, with a subdued “Good night,” she went out of the room, up the stairs, and into her own room.

“It’s a lie!” she said to herself.

XIX

“Then you’re not going to do anything?” asked Lexy.

“My dear Miss Moran, what in the world can I do?” returned Captain Grey, with a sort of despair.

They were sitting together on the veranda in the warm morning sunshine. They had had breakfast in the dining room, with the doctor—an excellent breakfast. The doctor had been at his best—courteous, affable, very attentive to his guests. Everything in his manner tended to reassure the young soldier.

Everything in the world seemed to tend in that direction, Lexy thought. A Sunday tranquillity lay over the country. Church bells were ringing somewhere in the far distance. The windows of the library stood open, and the parlor maid was visible in there, flitting about with broom and duster. Everything was peaceful and ordinary, and Captain Grey had come out on the veranda and attempted to begin a peaceful and ordinary conversation.

But Lexy had no intention of allowing him to enjoy such a thing. She felt pretty sure that her time in this house would not be long. She had caused Dr. Quelton an anxiety that he could not conceal. She had got in his way. She could not tell whether he had discovered her trick yet, but the effects were manifest; and if he didn’t know now, he would very soon, and then—

Captain Grey must carry on when she was gone.

“You’re properly satisfied—with everything?” she went on mercilessly. “You’re not allowed even to see your sister. No one can see her. You’re not allowed to call in another doctor.”

“Even if I’m not properly satisfied,” he answered, “what can I do? In her husband’s house, you know—I can’t make a row.”

“Why can’t you?”

He looked at her, startled and uneasy. Her question was ridiculous. Why couldn’t he make a row? Simply because he couldn’t; because he wasn’t that sort; because it wasn’t done; because almost anything was preferable to making a row.

“Of course, if you have a blind faith in Dr. Quelton—” she persisted.

“Well, I haven’t,” he admitted; “but—”

“Then let’s go upstairs and see her. The doctor has gone out.”

“But the nurse—”

“Put on your best commanding officer’s air,” said Lexy. “You can be awfully impressive when you like. If I were you, there’s nothing I’d stop at.”

“Yes, but look here—what can I say to Quelton when he hears about it?”

“Laugh it off,” said Lexy.

The idea of Captain Grey trying to laugh off anything made her grin from ear to ear.

“Not much of a joke, though, is it?” he said rather stiffly. “Suppose he hoofs us out of the house?”

“Oh, dear!” cried Lexy. “You’re not a bit resourceful! Let’s try it, anyhow. It’s horrible to think of her shut up like that. Perhaps she’s longing to see you.”

He rose.

“Right-o!” he said. “Let’s try it!”

Together they went up the stairs and down the hall of the other wing, opposite that in which Lexy’s room was. Captain Grey knocked on a door, and a quiet, middle-aged little nurse came out.

“I’ll just pop in to see how my sister’s getting on,” said the young man, and Lexy silently applauded his toploftical manner.

“I’m sorry,” said the little nurse, “but Dr. Quelton has given strict orders—”

“Er—yes, quite so!” he interrupted suavely. “I shan’t stop a minute.”

He came nearer, but the nurse drew back and stood with her back against the door.

“Dr. Quelton has given strict orders—” she repeated.

“No more of that, please!” he said with a frown. “I’m going to see Mrs. Quelton for a moment. Stand aside, please!”