eyes.  The girl was sitting up in her chair, with a sudden spot of color burning in her cheeks, her fingers gripping the counter as though for support, her eyes dilated, unnatural, burning in their white setting with an unholy fire.  The lady was the last to turn her head, and the bottle of eau-de-cologne which she had taken up from the counter, slipped with a crash to the floor.  All expression seemed to pass from her face; the very life seemed drawn from it.  Those who were watching her saw suddenly an old woman looking at something of which she was afraid.

The girl seemed to find an unnatural strength.  She dragged herself up and turned wildly to Tavernake.

“Take me away,” she cried, in a low voice.  “Take me away at once.”

The woman at the counter did not speak.  Tavernake stepped quickly forward and then hesitated.  The girl was on her feet now and she clutched at his arms.  Her eyes besought him.

“You must take me away, please,” she begged, hoarsely.  “I am well now—­quite well.  I can walk.”

Tavernake’s lack of imagination stood him in good stead then.  He simply did what he was told, did it in perfectly mechanical fashion, without asking any questions.  With the girl leaning heavily upon his arm, he stepped into the street and almost immediately into a passing taxicab which he had hailed from the threshold of the shop.  As he closed the door, he glanced behind him.  The woman was standing there, half turned towards him, still with that strange, stony look upon her lifeless face.  The chemist was bending across the counter towards her, wondering, perhaps, if another incident were to be drawn into his night’s work.  The eau-de-cologne was running in a little stream across the floor.

“Where to, sir?” the taxicab driver asked Tavernake.

“Where to?” Tavernake repeated.

The girl was clinging to his arm.

“Tell him to drive away from here,” she whispered, “to drive anywhere, but away from here.”

“Drive straight on,” Tavernake directed, “along Fleet Street and up Holborn.  I will give you the address later on.”

The man changed his speed and their pace increased.  Tavernake sat quite still, dumfounded by these amazing happenings.  The girl by his side was clutching his arm, sobbing a little hysterically, holding him all the time as though in terror.

CHAPTER IV

BREAKFAST WITH BEATRICE

The girl, awakened, perhaps, by the passing of some heavy cart along the street below, or by the touch of the sunbeam which lay across her pillow, first opened her eyes and then, after a preliminary stare around, sat up in bed.  The events of the previous night slowly shaped themselves in her mind.  She remembered everything up to the commencement of that drive in the taxicab.  Sometime after that she must have fainted.  And now —­ what had become of her?  Where was she?