“Sometimes,” she said, “there is danger in the simplest things one does.  I don’t understand what it is,” she went on, a little wearily, “but I feel that I am losing you, you are slipping away, and day by day Isaac gets more mysterious, and when he comes home sometimes his face is like the face of a wolf.  There is a new desire born in him, and I am afraid.  I think that if I am left alone here many more nights like this, I shall go mad.  I tried to undress, Arnie, but I couldn’t.  I threw myself down on the bed and I had to bite my handkerchief.  I have been trembling.  Oh, if you could hear those voices!  If you could understand the fears that are nameless, how terrible they are!”

She was shaking all over.  He passed his other arm around her and lifted her up.

“Come and sit with me in my room for a little time,” he said.  “I will carry you back presently.”

She kissed him on the forehead.

“Dear Arnold!” she whispered.  “For a few minutes, then—­not too long.  To-night I am afraid.  Always I feel that something will happen.  Tell me this?”

“What is it, dear?”

“Why should Isaac press me so hard to tell him where you were going to-night?  You passed him on the stairs, didn’t you?”

Arnold nodded.

“He was with another man,” he said, with a little shiver.  “Did that man come up to his rooms?”

“They both came in together,” Ruth said.  “They talked in a corner for some time.  The man who was with Isaac seemed terrified about something.  Then Isaac came over to me and asked about you.”

“What did you tell him?” Arnold asked.

“I thought it best to know nothing at all,” she replied.  “I simply said that you were going to have dinner with some of your new friends.”

“Does he know who they are?”

Ruth nodded.

“Yes, we have spoken of that together,” she admitted.  “I had to tell him of your good fortune.  He knows how well you have been getting on with Mr. and Mrs. Weatherley.  Listen!—­is that some one coming?”

He turned around with her still in his arms, and started so violently that if her fingers had not been locked behind his neck he must have dropped her.  Within a few feet of them was Isaac.  He had come up those five flights of stone steps without making a sound.  Even in that first second or two of amazement, Arnold noticed that he was wearing canvas shoes with rubber soles.  He stood with his long fingers gripping the worn balustrade, only two steps below them, and his face was like the face of some snarling animal.

“Ruth,” he demanded, hoarsely, “what are you doing out here at this time of night—­with him?”

She slipped from Arnold’s arms and leaned on her stick.  To all appearance, she was the least discomposed of the three.

“Isaac,” she answered, “Uncle Isaac, I was lonely—­lonely and terrified.  You left me so strangely, and it is so silent up here.  I left a little note and asked Arnold, when he came home, to bid me good night.  He knocked at my door two minutes ago.”