“Alone?” he asked.

And again, with a reckless sense of throwing herself upon his mercy, she made brief reply.

“I haven’t a friend in the world.”

He gave her his arm.

“Any enemies?” he asked.

They were at the door before she answered.

“Yes—­one.”

For an instant his arm grew tense, detaining her.

“And that?” he questioned.

She withdrew her hand sharply.

“Myself,” she said, and swiftly, without another glance, she left him.

XIII

The roar of the London traffic rose muffled through the London fog.  It was a winter afternoon of great murkiness.

In the private sitting-room of a private hotel Nina Perceval sat alone, as she had sat for two dragging, intolerable days, and waited.  She had begun to ask herself—­she had asked herself many times that day—­if she waited in vain.  She would remain for the week, whatever happened, but the torture of suspense had become such as she scarcely knew how to endure.  Something of the fever of restlessness that had tormented her at Bombay was upon her now, but with it, subtly mingled, was a misery of uncertainty that had not gripped her then.  She was unspeakably lonely, and at certain panic-stricken times unspeakably afraid; but whether it was the possibility of his presence or the certainty of his continued absence that appalled her, she could not have said.

A fire burned with a cheery crackling in the room, throwing weird shadows through the dimness.  Yet she shivered from time to time as though the chill of the London fog penetrated to her bones.  Ah! what was that?  She startled violently at the sound of a low knock at the door, then hastily commanded herself.  It was only a waiter with the tea she had ordered, of course.  With her back to the door she bade him enter.

But, though the door opened and someone entered, there came no jingle of tea things.  She did not turn her head.  It was as though she could not.  She was as one turned to stone.  She thought that the wild throbbing of her heart would choke her.

He came straight to her and stood beside her, not offering to touch so much as her hand.  The red firelight beat upwards on his face.  She ventured a single glance at him, and was oddly shocked by the look he wore.  Something of the red glow on the hearth shone back at her from his eyes.  She did not dare to look again.  Yet when he spoke, though he uttered no greeting, his voice was quite normal, wholly free from agitation.

“I should have been here sooner, but I was scouring London for an old friend.  I have found him at last, but, faith, I’ve had a chase.  Do you remember Jasper Caldicott, the parson who went out with us on the Scindia eight years ago?”

“Yes, I remember him.”  She spoke with a strong effort.  Her lips felt stiff and cold.