There came a low knock at the door between her room and her husband’s.  She started violently.  He had been in town for a few hours.  She had not expected him back for another quarter of an hour at least.

“Oh no,” she called out quickly, “you can’t come in!”

Yet she stood as she was under the glaring light, the letter still clutched stiffly in her hand, her eyes still staring widely at the irregular, un-English writing.  The letters seemed to writhe and squirm into life before her distorted vision, to wriggle like a procession of monstrous insects across the page.  Were they insects or were they reptiles?  She asked herself the question dazedly.

“Chris!” Her husband’s voice came to her softly through the closed door.  “Let me come in for a moment.  I have something to show you.”

“Wait!” she called back desperately.  “Wait!”

Yet it was as if iron chains were loaded upon her.  She could speak, but she could not move.  Were they reptiles she was watching so intently?  Or stay!  Were they crabs?  They were certainly rather like the funny little crabs that she and Cinders used to hunt for in the shallow pools of Valpre.  She gave a little laugh.  Surely it was the sort of thing that might have happened to Alice in Wonderland!

And then quite suddenly her brain flashed back to understanding, to vivid, appalling consciousness; and she knew that her husband was waiting to enter, while she held in her hand the one thing which she would have sacrificed her life sooner than let him see.  The awfulness of the realization spurred her back to action.  Her limbs were free again, though horribly—­so horribly—­unsteady.  The letter seemed to burn her fingers.  She dropped it into the small drawer in which she kept her trinkets, turned the key with feverish haste, and, withdrawing it, thrust it down inside her dress.  The cold steel sent a shiver to her very heart, but it stilled the wild fever of her fear.  When she turned from the dressing-table she had nerved herself; she was calm.

She crossed the room to the door at which Trevor stood waiting, and quietly opened it.

“How impatient you are!” she said, with a smile.

For a woman who held her fate at bay it was admirably done; but for Chris—­little Chris of the sunny eyes and eager, impetuous actions—­it was so overwhelming a failure that Mordaunt, standing on the threshold, made no movement to enter, but stood, and looked and looked, as though he had never seen her before.

She met the look as a duellist meets his opponent’s blade, instantly but warily, summoning all the craft of her newly awakened womanhood to her aid.  She was not conscious of agitation.  Her heart felt as if it were turned to stone; it did not seem to be beating at all.

“Well,” she said, as he did not speak, “have you got through your business in town?”

He did not answer her, but came straight forward into the room, took her by the shoulders, and drew her round so that she faced the light.  “What have you been doing?” he said.