But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry rang sharply out: 

“Paul!”

It came from the kitchen.

And in the same moment it flashed upon Oleron, he knew not how, that two, three, five, he knew not how many minutes before, another sound, unmarked at the time but suddenly transfixing his attention now, had striven to reach his intelligence.  This sound had been the slight touch of metal on metal—­just such a sound as Oleron made when he put his key into the lock.

“Hallo!...  Who’s that?” he called sharply from his bed.

He had no answer.

He called again.  “Hallo!...  Who’s there?...  Who is it?”

This time he was sure he heard noises, soft and heavy, in the kitchen.

“This is a queer thing altogether,” he muttered.  “By Jove, I’m as weak as a kitten too....  Hallo, there!  Somebody called, didn’t they?...  Elsie!  Is that you?...”

Then he began to knock with his hand on the wall at the side of his bed.

“Elsie!...  Elsie!...  You called, didn’t you?...  Please come here, whoever it is!...”

There was a sound as of a closing door, and then silence.  Oleron began to get rather alarmed.

“It may be a nurse,” he muttered; “Elsie’d have to get me a nurse, of course.  She’d sit with me as long as she could spare the time, brave lass, and she’d get a nurse for the rest....  But it was awfully like her voice....  Elsie, or whoever it is!...  I can’t make this out at all.  I must go and see what’s the matter....”

He put one leg out of bed.  Feeling its feebleness, he reached with his hand for the additional support of the wall....

* * * * *

But before putting out the other leg he stopped and considered, picking at his new-found beard.  He was suddenly wondering whether he dared go into the kitchen.  It was such a frightfully long way; no man knew what horror might not leap and huddle on his shoulders if he went so far; when a man has an overmastering impulse to get back into bed he ought to take heed of the warning and obey it.  Besides, why should he go?  What was there to go for?  If it was that Bengough creature again, let her look after herself; Oleron was not going to have things cramp themselves on his defenceless back for the sake of such a spoilsport as she!...  If she was in, let her let herself out again, and the sooner the better for her!  Oleron simply couldn’t be bothered.  He had his work to do.  On the morrow, he must set about the writing of a novel with a heroine so winsome, capricious, adorable, jealous, wicked, beautiful, inflaming, and altogether evil, that men should stand amazed.  She was coming over him now; he knew by the alteration of the very air of the room when she was near him; and that soft thrill of bliss that had begun to stir in him never came unless she was beckoning, beckoning....

He let go the wall and fell back into bed again as—­oh, unthinkable!—­the other half of that kiss that a gnash had interrupted was placed (how else convey it?) on his lips, robbing him of very breath....