"
It wanted but five minutes to the hour of midnight, when again the door
bell clamored in the silence.
Leroux wrote steadily on. The bell continued to ring, and, furthermore,
the ringer could be heard beating upon the outer door.
"Soames!" cried Leroux irritably, "Soames! Why the hell don't you go to
the door!"
Leroux stood up, dashing his pen upon the table.
"I shall have to sack that damned man!" he cried; "he takes too many
liberties--stopping out until this hour of the night!"
He pulled open the study door, crossed the hallway, and opened the door
beyond.
In, out of the darkness--for the stair lights had been
extinguished--staggered a woman; a woman whose pale face exhibited,
despite the ravages of sorrow or illness, signs of quite unusual beauty.
Her eyes were wide opened, and terror-stricken, the pupils contracted
almost to vanishing point. She wore a magnificent cloak of civet fur
wrapped tightly about her, and, as Leroux opened the door, she tottered
past him into the lobby, glancing back over her shoulder.
With his upraised hands plunged pathetically into the mop of his hair,
Leroux turned and stared at the intruder. She groped as if a darkness
had descended, clutched at the sides of the study doorway, and then,
unsteadily, entered--and sank down upon the big chesterfield in utter
exhaustion.
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