Olga was beside her in an instant, stooping over her, wrapping warm arms about her.  “My darling, don’t, don’t!” she pleaded.  “You know I would never do anything to hurt you.  I never dreamed of this indeed—­indeed!”

Violet made a passionate movement to thrust her away, but she would not suffer it.  She held her close.

“Violet dearest, don’t cry like this!  There is no need for it.  Really, you needn’t be so distressed.  There, darling, come into bed with me.  You’ll be ill if you cry so.  Violet!  Violet!”

But Violet was utterly beyond control, and her paroxysm of weeping only grew more and more violent, till after some minutes Olga became seriously frightened.  She stood up, and began to ask herself what she must do.

It was then that to her intense relief the door slid open and Nick’s head was poked enquiringly in.

“Hullo!” he said softly.  “Anything wrong?”

She motioned him to enter, being on the verge of tears herself.

“Nick, she’s hysterical!  What am I to do?”

“Better fetch Max,” he said.

But the words were hardly out of his mouth before Max himself pushed the door wide open and entered!

He bore a small lamp in his hand which threw his somewhat grim features into strong relief.  He made a weird figure in his night-attire, and his red hair looked as if it had been brushed straight on end.

He looked at neither Olga nor Nick, merely for a single instant at the shivering, sobbing girl on the floor, ere he set down his lamp with decision and turned to the washing-stand.

Olga stood and watched him as one fascinated.  He was quite deliberate in all he did.  With the utmost calmness he took up a tumbler and poured out some cold water.

Then very quietly he went to Violet, bent over her, gathered the dark hair back upon her shoulders.

She started at his touch, started and cried out in wild alarm, raising her head.  And Max, with a set intention which seemed to Olga scarcely short of brutal, dashed a spray of water full into her deathly face.

She flinched away from him with another cry, gasping for breath and staring up at him as one in nightmare terror.

“You!” she uttered voicelessly.  “You!”

He held what was left of the water to her lips.  “Drink!” he said with insistence.

She tried feebly to resist.  Her teeth chattered against the glass.

“Drink!” Max said again relentlessly.

Olga stooped swiftly forward and slipped a supporting arm around her.  Violet drank a little, and turned to her, weakly sobbing.

“Allegro, send him away!  Send him away!”

“Yes, dear, yes; he’s going now,” murmured Olga soothingly.

Max gave the glass to Nick with the absolute detachment of the professional man, and proceeded to take Violet’s pulse.  He watched her closely as he did so, with shaggy brows drawn down.