Her grasp upon my arm tightened.

“Dare I ask you,” she added pleadingly, “to conceal from him if necessary the fact that I have been here?”

“But Martin knows that you have been here,” I protested, my mind in a whirl at this sudden turn of affairs; “and the man sitting on the bench outside must have seen you come in also.”

“He did not,” she replied rapidly, “and Martin does not know who I am.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “Neither do I,” but: 

“Please,” she pleaded; “it is not much to ask, but it means so much to me.”

Thereupon, without waiting for my answer, she turned and ran out through the little doorway, which opened as a matter of fact into the larder of the inn, from which there was an exit into a kitchen-garden.

I could hear Martin, the landlord, talking to the Eurasian doctor in the passage outside the coffee-room, and before I had time to open the door, there came a peremptory rap, the door was opened from the outside and Dr. Damar Greefe entered.

In spite of the already great heat of the morning he wore a heavy black overcoat, and his white hair showed in startling relief beneath a wide-brimmed black felt hat.  If I had been surprised at the tallness of the woman who had so suddenly departed, the stature of the Eurasian was curiously illustrated by the fact that he had to lower his head in order to enter the little doorway.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, peering towards me where I stood in the badly lighted room—­“Mr. Addison, I believe?”

“At your service, Dr. Greefe,” I replied.

“I understood that my niece was here?”

“Your niece!” I exclaimed, and my astonishment was quite unfeigned.

“Precisely.”

That peremptory manner which I had previously resented in him evinced itself now; and even had I lacked reasons other than personal for foiling him I should certainly have returned a reply far from pacific.

“I was not aware,” he continued, his voice high-pitched and harsh, “that you were acquainted.  Inform me.”

All the time he was peering about the room suspiciously, and: 

“I inform you that we are not!” I said.  “But if we were, I cannot conceive that our acquaintance would concern you in any way.”

“You are rude, sir!” he cried, and bent towards me so that I could see the fierce hawk face set in a vicious scowl.

“I should be sorry to think so,” I said indifferently; for the Eurasian’s behavior transcended the merely annoying and was that of a lunatic.  “I would not willingly provoke a sick man, and the tone and manner of your address forcibly suggest to me that your temperature is not normal.”

A moment he stood bending towards me, his pose that of one about to spring, then: 

“Ah,” he exclaimed, “yes, you are right, Mr. Addison.  I live much alone and I fear my manner grows brusk.  Overlook it.  She has gone, then?”