hastily opened and a lady appeared frantically in the aperture.



CHAPTER V

MALKIEL THE SECOND POISONS MISS MINERVA

"Miss Minerva!" exclaimed Malkiel the Second.

"Lady Enid!" cried the Prophet, at the same moment.

"You can't go in there, Miss Partridge!" ejaculated the young librarian,
simultaneously, from the further room.

The lady, a tall girl of twenty-two, with grey eyes, dark smooth hair,
and a very agreeable, though slightly Scottish, mouth, began to behave
rather like a stag at bay. She panted, and looked wildly round as if
meditating how, and in what direction, she could best bolt.

"What's the matter?" cried the Prophet, his voice becoming not a little
piercing from surprise and his previous stress of agitation.

"You can't go in there, Miss Minerva," requested the young librarian,
who had now gained the parlour threshold, and who seemed about to take
up a very determined stand thereon.

"I must go in--I must," said the lady, in a mellow, but again slightly
Scottish, voice. "Don't tell anybody I'm here, or you'll be sorry."