"What was he up to, that imbecile?"
"Oh, he was examining this curiosity," I said.

"Oh, yes, and it accidentally went off," said the doctor, looking
contemptuously at the Nubian knife I had thrown on the table. Then

while wiping his hands: "I would bet there is a woman somewhere
under this; but that of course does not affect the nature of the

wound. I hope this blood-letting will do him good."
"Nothing will do him any good," I said.

"Curious house this," went on the doctor, "It belongs to a curious
sort of woman, too. I happened to see her once or twice. I

shouldn't wonder if she were to raise considerable trouble in the
track of her pretty feet as she goes along. I believe you know her

well."
"Yes."

"Curious people in the house, too. There was a Carlist officer
here, a lean, tall, dark man, who couldn't sleep. He consulted me

once. Do you know what became of him?"
"No."

The doctor had finished wiping his hands and flung the towel far
away.

"Considerable nervous over-strain. Seemed to have a restless
brain. Not a good thing, that. For the rest a perfect gentleman.

And this Spaniard here, do you know him?"
"Enough not to care what happens to him," I said, "except for the

trouble he might cause to the Carlist sympathizers here, should the
police get hold of this affair."

"Well, then, he must take his chance in the seclusion of that
conservatory sort of place where you have put him. I'll try to

find somebody we can trust to look after him. Meantime, I will
leave the case to you."

CHAPTER VIII
Directly I had shut the door after the doctor I started shouting

for Therese. "Come down at once, you wretched hypocrite," I yelled
at the foot of the stairs in a sort of frenzy as though I had been

a second Ortega. Not even an echo answered me; but all of a sudden
a small flame flickered descending from the upper darkness and

Therese appeared on the first floor landing carrying a lighted
candle in front of a livid, hard face, closed against remorse,

compassion, or mercy by the meanness of her righteousness and of
her rapacious instincts. She was fully dressed in that abominable

brown stuff with motionless folds, and as I watched her coming down
step by step she might have been made of wood. I stepped back and

pointed my finger at the darkness of the passage leading to the
studio. She passed within a foot of me, her pale eyes staring

straight ahead, her face still with disappointment and fury. Yet
it is only my surmise. She might have been made thus inhuman by

the force of an invisible purpose. I waited a moment, then,
stealthily, with extremecaution, I opened the door of the so-

called Captain Blunt's room.
The glow of embers was all but out. It was cold and dark in there;

but before I closed the door behind me the dim light from the hall
showed me Dona Rita standing on the very same spot where I had left

her, statuesque in her night-dress. Even after I shut the door she
loomed up enormous, indistinctly rigid and inanimate. I picked up

the candelabra, groped for a candle all over the carpet, found one,
and lighted it. All that time Dona Rita didn't stir. When I

turned towards her she seemed to be slowly awakening from a trance.
She was deathly pale and by contrast the melted, sapphire-blue of

her eyes looked black as coal. They moved a little in my
direction, incurious, recognizing me slowly. But when they had

recognized me completely she raised her hands and hid her face in
them. A whole minute or more passed. Then I said in a low tone:

"Look at me," and she let them fall slowly as if accepting the
inevitable.

"Shall I make up the fire?" . . . I waited. "Do you hear me?" She
made no sound and with the tip of my finger I touched her bare

shoulder. But for its elasticity it might have been frozen. At
once I looked round for the fur coat; it seemed to me that there

was not a moment to lose if she was to be saved, as though we had
been lost on an Arctic plain. I had to put her arms into the

sleeves, myself, one after another. They were cold, lifeless, but
flexible. Then I moved in front of her and buttoned the thing

close round her throat. To do that I had actually to raise her
chin with my finger, and it sank slowly down again. I buttoned all

the other buttons right down to the ground. It was a very long and
splendid fur. Before rising from my kneeling position I felt her

feet. Mere ice. The intimacy of this sort of attendance helped
the growth of my authority. "Lie down," I murmured, "I shall pile

on you every blanket I can find here," but she only shook her head.
Not even in the days when she ran "shrill as a cicada and thin as a

match" through the chill mists of her native mountains could she
ever have felt so cold, so wretched, and so desolate. Her very

soul, her grave, indignant, and fantastic soul, seemed to drowse
like an exhausted traveller surrendering himself to the sleep of

death. But when I asked her again to lie down she managed to
answer me, "Not in this room." The dumb spell was broken. She

turned her head from side to side, but oh! how cold she was! It
seemed to come out of her, numbing me, too; and the very diamonds

on the arrow of gold sparkled like hoar frost in the light of the
one candle.

"Not in this room; not here," she protested, with that peculiar
suavity of tone which made her voice unforgettable, irresistible,

no matter what she said. "Not after all this! I couldn't close my
eyes in this place. It's full of corruption and ugliness all

round, in me, too, everywhere except in your heart, which has
nothing to do where I breathe. And here you may leave me. But

wherever you go remember that I am not evil, I am not evil."
I said: "I don't intend to leave you here. There is my room

upstairs. You have been in it before."
"Oh, you have heard of that," she whispered. The beginning of a

wan smile vanished from her lips.
"I also think you can't stay in this room; and, surely, you needn't

hesitate . . ."
"No. It doesn't matter now. He has killed me. Rita is dead."

While we exchanged these words I had retrieved the quilted, blue
slippers and had put them on her feet. She was very tractable.

Then taking her by the arm I led her towards the door.
"He has killed me," she repeated in a sigh. "The little joy that

was in me."
"He has tried to kill himself out there in the hall," I said. She

put back like a frightened child but she couldn't be dragged on as
a child can be.

I assured her that the man was no longer there but she only
repeated, "I can't get through the hall. I can't walk. I can't .

. ."
"Well," I said, flinging the door open and seizing her suddenly in

my arms, "if you can't walk then you shall be carried," and I
lifted her from the ground so abruptly that she could not help

catching me round the neck as any child almost will do
instinctively when you pick it up.

I ought really to have put those blue slippers in my pocket. One
dropped off at the bottom of the stairs as I was stepping over an

unpleasant-looking mess on the marblepavement, and the other was
lost a little way up the flight when, for some reason (perhaps from

a sense of insecurity), she began to struggle. Though I had an odd