‘Margaret.’

She looked at him quietly.  He might have been someone she had never set eyes on, and yet from her composure she might have expected him to be standing there.

‘Margaret, don’t you know me?’

‘What do you want?’ she answered placidly.

He was so taken aback that he did not know what to say.  She kept gazing at him steadfastly.  On a sudden her calmness vanished, and she sprang to her feet.

‘Is it you really?’ she cried, terribly agitated.  ’I thought it was only a shape that mimicked you.’

‘Margaret, what do you mean?  What has come over you?’

She stretched out her hand and touched him.

‘I’m flesh and blood all right,’ he said, trying to smile.

She shut her eyes for a moment, as though in an effort to collect herself.

‘I’ve had hallucinations lately,’ she muttered.  ’I thought it was some trick played upon me.’

Suddenly she shook herself.

’But what are you doing here?  You must go.  How did you come?  Oh, why won’t you leave me alone?’

’I’ve been haunted by a feeling that something horrible was going to happen to you.  I was obliged to come.’

’For God’s sake, go.  You can do me no good.  If he finds out you’ve been here—­’

She stopped, and her eyes were dilated with terror.  Arthur seized her hands.

’Margaret, I can’t go—­I can’t leave you like this.  For Heaven’s sake, tell me what is the matter.  I’m so dreadfully frightened.’

He was aghast at the difference wrought in her during the two months since he had seen her last.  Her colour was gone, and her face had the greyness of the dead.  There were strange lines on her forehead, and her eyes had an unnatural glitter.  Her youth had suddenly left her.  She looked as if she were struck down by mortal illness.

‘What is that matter with you?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’  She looked about her anxiously.  ’Oh, why don’t you go?  How can you be so cruel?’

‘I must do something for you,’ he insisted.

She shook her head.

‘It’s too late.  Nothing can help me now.’  She paused; and when she spoke again it was with a voice so ghastly that it might have come from the lips of a corpse.  ’I’ve found out at last what he’s going to do with me He wants me for his great experiment, and the time is growing shorter.’

‘What do you mean by saying he wants you?’

‘He wants—­my life.’

Arthur gave a cry of dismay, but she put up her hand.

’It’s no use resisting.  It can’t do any good—­I think I shall be glad when the moment comes.  I shall at least cease to suffer.’

‘But you must be mad.’

‘I don’t know.  I know that he is.’

’But if your life is in danger, come away for God’s sake.  After all, you’re free.  He can’t stop you.’

‘I should have to go back to him, as I did last time,’ she answered, shaking her head.  ’I thought I was free then, but gradually I knew that he was calling me.  I tried to resist, but I couldn’t.  I simply had to go to him.’