He went to the front door in order to make sure he had put the chain on, and then taking it off, opened the door and looked out into the night. The snow was still falling fast, and the prints of wheels and footsteps outside were already obliterated. Mr Silverdale had walked home, light-heartedly predicting a jolly good snowballing match with his boys next day, and Keeling found himself detesting Mr Silverdale with acute intensity. Norah had walked home also.... In a moment he was back in the hall, putting on a mackintosh. He would have liked to put on boots as well but for that he would have had to go up to his dressing-room next door to his wifes bedroom. Then gently closing the door behind him, he went out into the night. He must just walk as far as her house to make sure she was not still tramping her way through the snow, and traverse the streets she had traversed. It was absolutely necessary to satisfy himself about that, and he did not care how unreasonable it wasrational considerations had no application; an emotional dictate made him go. There was but{153} a mile of gas-lit thoroughfare between his house and hers, but he, striving to smother the emotion he would not admit, told himself that he must be satisfied she was not still out in this frozen inclement night. He gave that as a sop to his rational self; but he knew he threw it as to some caged wolf, to keep it from growling.
"What did she say," demanded the Doctor, irritably.I have brought the block of your book-plate, sir, she said, with a couple of impressions of it."'"Man-man," one girlee talkee he:
ONE:[Pg 112]But in this attempt he was unexpectedly thwarted. The Clockwork man recovered himself; he ran straight back to the wicket and then stopped dead. The umpire was in the act of replacing the bails, for the wicket had been put down, and, fast as this eccentric cricketer had run in the first place, he had not been quick enough to reach the crease in time. By all the rules of the game, and beyond the shadow of doubt, he had been "run out." He now regarded the stumps meditatively, with[Pg 36] a finger jerked swiftly against his nose, as though recognising a former state of consciousness. And then, with a swift movement, he took up his position in readiness to receive the ball.
TWO:She is utterly miserable, said Charles. It{325} couldnt be otherwise, could it? And you are miserable too, sir. I amI am awfully sorry for you both. But I suppose that has got to be. Norah could do nothing else than what she has done.
TWO:His further suggestions were drowned by an enormous hy?na-like yawn coming from the direction of the couch. It was followed by another, even more prodigious. The room[Pg 137] fairly vibrated with the Clockwork man's uncouth expression of omnivorous appetite.
THREE:Gordon looked down into the troubled violet eyes with amazement. Surely he would wake up presently and find that he had been dreaming. Countess Lalage with all the world at her feet, and he a struggling doctor. Oh, it was preposterous! And yet little words and signs and hints unnoticed at the time were coming to his mind now.I sprang for the door, but the fire-log sent me sprawling with my shoulder on the threshold. As I went down I heard in the same breath the wounded officer wailing "Go back! go in! there are only four of them! don't leave one alive!" and Miss Harper all but screaming "Our men! our men! God be praised, our men are coming, they are here! Fly spoilers, for your lives, fly!"
THREE:Ferry prompted in a whisper, the three of us cried "Yes!" and he added "Pass one side from the door, Miss Harper, we are going to shoot through it."
