‘I can’t come —­ now.  I have a dreadful headache.’

‘You only want to be quiet.  Come along.’

The hansom had pulled up.  Alma, ashamed to resist under the eyes of the driver, stepped in, and her companion placed himself at her side.  As soon as they drove away he caught her hand and held it tightly.

‘I can’t go to your rooms,’ said Alma, after a useless resistance.  ’My head is terrible.  Tell me whatever you have to say, and then take me to Baker Street Station.  I’ll see you again in a day or two.’

She did not feign the headache.  It had been coming on since she left home, and was now so severe that her eyes closed under the torture of the daylight.

‘A little rest and you’ll be all right,’ said Dymes.

Five minutes more would bring them to their destination.  Alma pulled away her hand violently.

‘If you don’t stop him, I shall.’

‘You mean it?  As you please.  You know what I ——­’

Alma raised herself, drew the cabman’s attention, and bade him drive to Baker Street.  There was a short silence, Dymes glaring and muttering inarticulately.

‘Of course, if you really have a bad headache,’ he growled at length.

‘Indeed I have —­ and you treat me very unkindly.’

’Hang it, Alma, don’t speak like that!  As if I could be unkind to you!’

He secured her hand again, and she did not resist.  Then they talked of business, settled one or two matters, appointed another meeting.  As they drew near to the station, Alma spoke impulsively, with a bewildered look.

‘I shouldn’t wonder if I give it up, after all.’

‘Rot!’ was her companion’s amazed exclamation.

‘I might.  I won’t answer for it.  And it would be your fault.’

Stricken with alarm, Dymes poured forth assurances of his good behaviour.  He followed her down to the platform, and for a quarter of an hour she had to listen, in torment of mind and body, to remonstrances, flatteries, amorous blandishments, accompanied by the hiss of steam and the roar of trains.

On reaching home she could do nothing but lie down in the dark.  Her head ached intolerably; and hour after hour, as often happens when the brain is over-wearied, a strain of music hummed incessantly on her ear, till inability to dismiss it made her cry in half-frenzied wretchedness.

With sleep she recovered; but through the next day, dull and idle, her thoughts kept such a gloomy colour that she well-nigh brought herself to the resolve with which she had threatened Felix Dymes.  But for the anticipation of Harvey’s triumph, she might perhaps have done so.

CHAPTER 11