and instinctive. Now suddenly he had imposed himself upon her as a
creature dangerous, beastlike. She wanted to get out of the room but she
dared not, for she was sure that her careful steps would, despite
herself, change into a run. She sat down, meaning to read for a few
moments, compose herself and then go. But no sooner had she taken her
seat than her terror increased tenfold, for Ballantyne rose swiftly from
his chair and walking in a circle round the room with an extraordinarily
light and noiseless step disappeared behind her. Then he sat down. Mrs.
Repton heard the slight grating of the legs of a chair upon the floor. It
was a chair at a writing-table close by the window and exactly at her
back. He could see every movement which she made, and she could see
nothing, not so much as the tip of one of his fingers. And of his fingers
she was now afraid. He was watching her from his point of vantage; she
seemed to feel his eyes burning upon the nape of her neck. And he said
nothing; and he did not stir. It was broad daylight, she assured herself.
She had but to cross the room to the bell beside the fireplace. Nay, she
had only to scream--and she was very near to screaming--to bring the
servants to her rescue. But she dared not do it. Before she was half-way
to the bell, before the cry was out of her mouth she would feel his
fingers close about her throat.

* * * * *

Mrs. Repton had begun to tell her story with reluctance, dreading lest
Thresk should attribute it to a woman's nerves and laugh. But he did not.
He listened gravely, seriously; and, as she continued, that nightmare of
an evening so lived again in her recollections that she could not but
make it vivid in her words.

"I had more than a mere sense of danger," she said. "I felt besides a