She felt Oliver Haddo take her hands. She would not let him drag them away. Then she heard him speak.

'You need not be afraid.'

His voice was quite natural once more, and she realized with a start that she was sitting quietly in the studio. She looked around her with frightened eyes. Everything was exactly as it had been. The early night of autumn was fallen, and the only light in the room came from the fire. There was still that vague, acrid scent of the substance which Haddo had burned.

'Shall I light the candles?' he said.

He struck a match and lit those which were on the piano. They threw a strange light. Then Margaret suddenly remembered all that she had seen, and she remembered that Haddo had stood by her side. Shame seized her, intolerable shame, so that the colour, rising to her cheeks, seemed actually to burn them. She hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.

'Go away,' she said. 'For God's sake, go.'

He looked at her for a moment; and the smile came to his lips which Susie had seen after his tussle with Arthur, when last he was in the studio.

'When you want me you will find me in the Rue de Vaugiraud, number 209,' he said. 'Knock at the second door on the left, on the third floor.'

She did not answer. She could only think of her appalling shame.

'I'll write it down for you in case you forget.'

He scribbled the address on a sheet of paper that he found on the table. Margaret took no notice, but sobbed as though her heart would break. Suddenly, looking up with a start, she saw that he was gone. She had not heard him open the door or close it. She sank down on her knees and prayed desperately, as though some terrible danger threatened her.

But when she heard Susie's key in the door, Margaret sprang to her feet. She stood with her back to the fireplace, her hands behind her, in the attitude of a prisoner protesting his innocence. Susie was too much annoyed to observe this agitation.

'Why on earth didn't you come to tea?' she asked. 'I couldn't make out what had become of you.'

'I had a dreadful headache,' answered Margaret, trying to control herself.

Susie flung herself down wearily in a chair. Margaret forced herself to speak.

'Had Nancy anything particular to say to you?' she asked.

'She never turned up,' answered Susie irritably. 'I can't understand it. I waited till the train came in, but there was no sign of her. Then I thought she might have hit upon that time by chance and was not coming from England, so I walked about the station for half an hour.'

She went to the chimneypiece, on which had been left the telegram that summoned her to the Gare du Nord, and read it again. She gave a little cry of surprise.

'How stupid of me! I never noticed the postmark. It was sent from the Rue Littrй.'

This was less than ten minutes' walk from the studio. Susie looked at the message with perplexity.

'I wonder if someone has been playing a silly practical joke on me.' She shrugged her shoulders. 'But it's too foolish. If I were a suspicious woman,' she smiled, 'I should think you had sent it yourself to get me out of the way.'

The idea flashed through Margaret that Oliver Haddo was the author of it. He might easily have seen Nancy's name on the photograph during his first visit to the studio. She had no time to think before she answered lightly.

'If I wanted to get rid of you, I should have no hesitation in saying so.'

'I suppose no one has been here?' asked Susie.

'No one.'

The lie slipped from Margaret's lips before she had made up her mind to tell it. Her heart gave a great beat against her chest. She felt herself redden.

Susie got up to light a cigarette. She wished to rest her nerves. The box was on the table and, as she helped herself, her eyes fell carelessly on the address that Haddo had left. She picked it up and read it aloud.

'Who on earth lives there?' she asked.

'I don't know at all,' answered Margaret.

She braced herself for further questions, but Susie, without interest, put down the sheet of paper and struck a match.

Margaret was ashamed. Her nature was singularly truthful, and it troubled her extraordinarily that she had lied to her greatest friend. Something stronger than herself seemed to impel her. She would have given much to confess her two falsehoods, but had not the courage. She could not bear that Susie's implicit trust in her straightforwardness should be destroyed; and the admission that Oliver Haddo had been there would entail a further acknowledgment of the nameless horrors she had witnessed. Susie would think her mad.

There was a knock at the door; and Margaret, her nerves shattered by all that she had endured, could hardly restrain a cry of terror. She feared that Haddo had returned. But it was Arthur Burdon. She greeted him with a passionate relief that was unusual, for she was by nature a woman of great self-possession. She felt excessively weak, physically exhausted as though she had gone a long journey, and her mind was highly wrought. Margaret remembered that her state had been the same on her first arrival in Paris, when, in her eagerness to get a preliminary glimpse of its marvels, she had hurried till her bones ached from one celebrated monument to another. They began to speak of trivial things. Margaret tried to join calmly in the conversation, but her voice sounded unnatural, and she fancied that more than once Arthur gave her a curious look. At length she could control herself no longer and burst into a sudden flood of tears. In a moment, uncomprehending but affectionate, he caught her in his arms. He asked tenderly what was the matter. He sought to comfort her. She wept ungovernably, clinging to him for protection.

'Oh, it's nothing,' she gasped. 'I don't know what is the matter with me. I'm only nervous and frightened.'

Arthur had an idea that women were often afflicted with what he described by the old-fashioned name of vapours, and was not disposed to pay much attention to this vehement distress. He soothed her as he would have done a child.

'Oh, take care of me, Arthur. I'm so afraid that some dreadful thing will happen to me. I want all your strength. Promise that you'll never forsake me.'

He laughed, as he kissed away her tears, and she tried to smile.

'Why can't we be married at once?' she asked. 'I don't want to wait any longer. I shan't feel safe till I'm actually your wife.'

He reasoned with her very gently. After all, they were to be married in a few weeks. They could not easily hasten matters, for their house was not yet ready, and she needed time to get her clothes. The date had been fixed by her. She listened sullenly to his words. Their wisdom was plain, and she did not see how she could possibly insist. Even if she told him all that had passed he would not believe her; he would think she was suffering from some trick of her morbid fancy.

'If anything happens to me,' she answered, with the dark, anguished eyes of a hunted beast, 'you will be to blame.'

'I promise you that nothing will happen.'