“Some brandy—!” cried Leroux, anxiously.
“If you please,” whispered the visitor.
She dropped her arms and fell back upon the chesterfield,
insensible.
MIDNIGHT AND MR. KING
Leroux clutched at the corner of the writing-table
to steady himself and stood there looking at the deathly
face. Under the most favorable circumstances,
he was no man of action, although in common with the
rest of his kind he prided himself upon the possession
of that presence of mind which he lacked. It
was a situation which could not have alarmed “Martin
Zeda,” but it alarmed, immeasurably, nay, struck
inert with horror, Martin Zeda’s creator.
Then, in upon Leroux’s mental turmoil, a sensible
idea intruded itself.
“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.
Thirty seconds were wanted to complete the cycle of
the day, when one of the listless hands thrown across
the back of the chesterfield opened and closed spasmodically.
The fur at the bosom of the midnight visitor began
rapidly to rise and fall.
Then, with a choking cry, the woman struggled upright;
her hair, hastily dressed, burst free of its bindings
and poured in gleaming cascade down about her shoulders.
Clutching with one hand at her cloak in order to keep
it wrapped about her, and holding the other blindly
before her, she rose, and with that same odd, groping
movement, began to approach the writing-table.
The pupils of her eyes were mere pin-points now; she
shuddered convulsively, and her skin was dewed with
perspiration. Her breath came in agonized gasps.
