"Dr. Cumberly!" he muttered. "I hope to God he is in!"
Without touching the recumbent form upon the chesterfield, without
seeking to learn, without daring to learn, if she lived or had died,
Leroux, the tempo of his life changed to a breathless gallop, rushed
out of the study, across the entrance hail, and, throwing wide the flat
door, leapt up the stair to the flat above--that of his old friend, Dr.
Cumberly.
The patter of the slippered feet grew faint upon the stair; then, as
Leroux reached the landing above, became inaudible altogether.
In Leroux's study, the table-clock ticked merrily on, seeming to hasten
its ticking as the hand crept around closer and closer to midnight.
The mosaic shade of the lamp mingled reds and blues and greens upon the
white ceiling above and poured golden light upon the pages of manuscript
strewn about beneath it. This was a typical work-room of a literary man
having the ear of the public--typical in every respect, save for the
fur-clad figure outstretched upon the settee.
And now the peeping light indiscreetly penetrated to the hem of a silken
garment revealed by some disarrangement of the civet fur. To the eye
of an experienced observer, had such an observer been present in Henry
Leroux's study, this billow of silk and lace behind the sheltering fur
must have proclaimed itself the edge of a night-robe, just as the ankle
beneath had proclaimed itself to Henry Leroux's shocked susceptibilities
to be innocent of stocking.
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