“Some brandy—!” cried Leroux, anxiously.

“If you please,” whispered the visitor.

She dropped her arms and fell back upon the chesterfield, insensible.

II

MIDNIGHT AND MR. KING

Leroux clutched at the corner of the writing-table to steady himself and stood there looking at the deathly face.  Under the most favorable circumstances, he was no man of action, although in common with the rest of his kind he prided himself upon the possession of that presence of mind which he lacked.  It was a situation which could not have alarmed “Martin Zeda,” but it alarmed, immeasurably, nay, struck inert with horror, Martin Zeda’s creator.

Then, in upon Leroux’s mental turmoil, a sensible idea intruded itself.

“Dr. Cumberly!” he muttered.  “I hope to God he is in!”

Without touching the recumbent form upon the chesterfield, without seeking to learn, without daring to learn, if she lived or had died, Leroux, the tempo of his life changed to a breathless gallop, rushed out of the study, across the entrance hail, and, throwing wide the flat door, leapt up the stair to the flat above—­that of his old friend, Dr. Cumberly.

The patter of the slippered feet grew faint upon the stair; then, as Leroux reached the landing above, became inaudible altogether.

In Leroux’s study, the table-clock ticked merrily on, seeming to hasten its ticking as the hand crept around closer and closer to midnight.  The mosaic shade of the lamp mingled reds and blues and greens upon the white ceiling above and poured golden light upon the pages of manuscript strewn about beneath it.  This was a typical work-room of a literary man having the ear of the public—­typical in every respect, save for the fur-clad figure outstretched upon the settee.

And now the peeping light indiscreetly penetrated to the hem of a silken garment revealed by some disarrangement of the civet fur.  To the eye of an experienced observer, had such an observer been present in Henry Leroux’s study, this billow of silk and lace behind the sheltering fur must have proclaimed itself the edge of a night-robe, just as the ankle beneath had proclaimed itself to Henry Leroux’s shocked susceptibilities to be innocent of stocking.

Thirty seconds were wanted to complete the cycle of the day, when one of the listless hands thrown across the back of the chesterfield opened and closed spasmodically.  The fur at the bosom of the midnight visitor began rapidly to rise and fall.

Then, with a choking cry, the woman struggled upright; her hair, hastily dressed, burst free of its bindings and poured in gleaming cascade down about her shoulders.

Clutching with one hand at her cloak in order to keep it wrapped about her, and holding the other blindly before her, she rose, and with that same odd, groping movement, began to approach the writing-table.  The pupils of her eyes were mere pin-points now; she shuddered convulsively, and her skin was dewed with perspiration.  Her breath came in agonized gasps.