With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway and torn aside the heavy portiere.  It was a sleeping-room he looked into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall.  There were electric lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the wall, and these were turned on, so that the room was brightly illuminated.  Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood upright beside him, gazing down upon him quite calmly.  In her right hand, which hung at her side, she held a little flat black automatic pistol of the type known as Brownings—­and they look like toys, but they are not.

Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort whatever to resist him.  She looked into his face quite frankly and unmoved, and she shook her head.

“I haven’t harmed him,” she said.  “I was going to, yes—­and then myself—­but he didn’t give me a chance.  He fell down in a fit.”  She nodded down toward the man who lay writhing at their feet.  “I frightened him,” she said, “and he fell in a fit.  He’s an epileptic, you know.  Didn’t you know that?  Oh yes.”

Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.  And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.

“Ugh!” she cried, “it’s horrible!  Horrible!  I can’t bear to look.  I saw him in a fit once before—­long ago—­and I couldn’t bear even to speak to him for a month.  I thought he had been cured.  He said—­Ah, it’s horrible!”

Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the fallen man, and Mlle. Nilssen said, over her shoulder: 

“Hold his head up from the floor, if you can bear to.  He might hurt it.”

It was not an easy thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural sense of repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man’s appearance, as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible.  The face was drawn hideously, and in the strong, clear light of the electrics it was a deathly yellow.  The eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up so that only the whites of them showed between the lids.  There was froth upon the distorted mouth, and it clung to the catlike mustache and to the shallow, sunken chin beneath.  But Ste. Marie exerted all his will power, and took the jerking, trembling head in his hands, holding it clear of the floor.

“You’d better call the servant,” he said.  “There may be something that can be done.”

But the woman answered, without looking: 

“No, there’s nothing that can be done, I believe, except to keep him from bruising himself.  Stimulants—­that sort of thing—­do more harm than good.  Could you get him on the bed here?”

“Together we might manage it,” said Ste. Marie.  “Come and help!”