A sudden dark suspicion flashed through his brain, and he drew her swiftly to the light, looking at her closely, searchingly.

“What have you been doing?” he said.

She fathomed his suspicion, and faintly smiled.  “Nothing—­nothing whatever.  I have never touched opium since the night you—­”

He cut in sharply, as if the reminiscence hurt him.  “I beg your pardon.  Well, what is it then?  There’s something wrong.”

She did not contradict him.  Merely with a slight gesture of weariness, she freed herself and sat down.

Nick remained on his feet, looking down at her, waiting grimly for enlightenment.

It did not come very readily.  Seconds had passed into minutes before she spoke, and then her words did not bear directly upon the matter in hand.

“I hope it was quite convenient to you to come to-night.  I was a little afraid you would have an engagement.”

He remembered the urgency of her summons and decided that she spoke thus conventionally to gain time.  On another occasion he might have humoured such a whim, but to-night it goaded him almost beyond endurance.  Surely they had passed that stage, he and she.

With an effort he controlled himself, but it sounded in his voice as he made reply.

“My engagement to you stands before any other.  What is it you want to say to me?”

Her expression changed slightly at his words, and a shade of apprehension flitted across her face.  She threw him a swift upward glance, half-scared, half-questioning.  Unconsciously her hands locked themselves together.

“I want you not to be vexed, Nick,” she said, in a low voice.

He made an abrupt movement.  “My dear girl, don’t be silly.  What’s the trouble?  Let me hear it and have done.”

His tone was reassuring.  She looked up at him with more confidence.

“Yes, I am silly,” she acknowledged.  “I’m perfectly idiotic to fancy for a moment that it can make any difference to you.  Nick, I have been thinking things over seriously, and—­and—­I find that I can’t marry you after all.  I hope you won’t mind, though of course—­” she uttered a little laugh that was piteously insincere—­“I know you will feel bound to say you do.  But—­anyhow—­you needn’t say it to me, because I understand.  I thought it was only fair to let you know at once.”

“Thank you,” said Nick, and there was that in his voice which was like the sudden snapping of a tense spring.

She saw his hands clench with the words, and an overwhelming sense of danger swept over her.  Instinctively she started to her feet.  If a tiger had leapt in upon her through the window she could not have been more terrified.

Nick took a single stride towards her, and she stopped as if struck powerless.  His face was the face she had once seen bent over a man in his death-agony, convulsed with passion, savage, merciless,—­the face of a devil.