Almost speechless with incredulity, Roger leapt to his feet.
"Esther! You—where have you come from?"
"Roger! Roger!" came the odd, croaking voice again. "Stop him—don't let him touch you—for God's sake don't let him touch your hand!"
Utterly astonished, the sickening suspicion rushed upon him that the doctor was right. She was in the grip of some dreadful delusion. At the same moment he was poignantly aware of her slenderness and fragility, the trembling of her hands. He reached her side, put out his hand to her to find her still staring at him, wild-eyed, panting for breath.
"Don't touch that bandage, he wants to kill you. He killed your father, he and Lady Clifford between them, now he's trying to get you, too. Oh, oh! thank God I reached you in time!"
Something seemed to snap, she wavered an instant like a drunken person, then all at once crumpled into a heap on the floor, where she lay shivering and sobbing.
CHAPTER XXXII
For a full second all the onlookers merely gazed, completely dumbfounded. Miss Clifford seemed unable to make a move, the doctor stood rooted to the spot by the table, his face expressionless, his fingers holding the long strip of gauze, which fluttered in the draught from the open door. The first to stir was Roger, who knelt beside the sobbing girl, and putting his arms around her body tried to lift her a little. The startling denunciation she had given voice to had hardly registered upon his brain, meaning to him only a confirmation of the deplorable truth which Sartorius had foreseen. She was, almost without doubt, unhinged: her whole appearance and manner went to prove it. In an agony of mind Roger took in the details of her sodden clothing, her wet, tangled hair, her dreadful pallor. His imagination flashed a swift vision of the poor girl wandering alone in the streets of Cannes for two days and nights. What was this terrible idea that obsessed her? how had she come by it? He spoke to her as to a child, with extreme gentleness.
"Esther, you poor little thing, what on earth is this all about? Try to tell me where you've been since you left here."
Her eyes, which were falling shut from exhaustion, tried to open for a moment. She made an effort to speak, but could not manage it, convulsive sobs still shaking her like a storm. The doctor and Miss Clifford had now come up and were bending over her.