She ceased, and, turning to the committee-man, who still stood near her, requested him to guide her from the room.  As she moved down from the platform the crowd recovered itself from the spell of her voice.  The majority cheered, but there were not a few dissentient howls.  Adela had ears for nothing; a path opened before her, and she walked along it with bowed head.  Her heart was now beating violently; she felt that she must walk quickly or perchance her strength would fail her before she reached the door.  As she disappeared there again arose the mingled uproar of cheers and groans; it came to her like the bellow of a pursuing monster as she fled along the passage.  And in truth Demos was on her track.  A few kept up with her; the rest jammed themselves in the door way, hustled each other, fought.  The dozen who came out to the pavement altogether helped her into the cab, then gave a hearty cheer as she drove away.

The voice of Demos, not malevolent at the last, but to Adela none the less something to be fled from, something which excited thoughts of horrible possibilities, in its very good-humour and its praise of her a sound of fear.

CHAPTER XXXV

His search being vain, Mutimer hastened from one police-station to another, leaving descriptions of his sister at each.  When he came home again Adela had just arrived.  She was suffering too much from the reaction which followed upon her excitement to give him more than the briefest account of what she had heard and said; but Mutimer cared little for details.  He drew an easy-chair near to the fire and begged her to rest.  As she lay back for a moment with closed eyes, he took her faint hand and put it to his lips.  He had never done so before; when she glanced at him he averted his face in embarrassment.

He would have persuaded her to go to bed, but she declared that sleep was impossible; she had much rather sit up with him till news came of Alice, as it surely must do in course of the night.  For Mutimer there was no resting; he circled continually about the neighbouring streets, returning to the house every quarter of an hour, always to find Adela in the same position.  Her heart would not fall to its normal beat, and the vision of those harsh faces would not pass from her mind.

At two o’clock they heard that Alice was found.  She had been discovered several miles from home, lying unconscious in the street, and was now in a hospital.  Mutimer set off at once; he returned with the report that she was between life and death.  It was impossible to remove her.

Adela slept a little between six and eight; her husband took even shorter rest.  When she came down to the sitting-room, he was reading the morning paper.  As she entered he uttered a cry of astonishment and rage.

‘Look here!’ he exclaimed to her.  ‘Read that!’

He pointed to an account of the Irish Dairy Company frauds, in which it was stated that the secretary, known as Delancey, appeared also to have borne the name of Rodman.