"That's all right, Mrs. Jones.... Shut the door, please."
He sat down again and sipped some tea. Then he told the men to be seated. One stepped forward. From the breast-pocket of his tunic he took out a slip of paper and unfolded it.
"You are Rupert Allen Dale?"
"Yes. You have a warrant——" He checked himself.
The man said something else which he did not hear. There was a buzzing in his ears. The imaginary figures on either side of his chair had grown to an enormous size. They seemed to be hemming him in. He felt stifled.
Now the man was reading. Reading the warrant for Rupert Allen Dale's arrest. He caught words here and there.
"That's all right," he said when the officer had finished. "But it's a mistake. I'm not guilty."
Again the man repeated automatically the official warning. Rupert glanced round the room. His eyes stopped at the vase of faded flowers, the red roses which Ruby had left for him.... Her thoughts, which she said would always be with him, surrounding him—in the little room where they had first known one another; known and loved one another.
Again a mist rose before his eyes. He set his teeth, telling himself that he must play the man.
For he had made up his mind what he was going to do, and there was nothing for it now but to do it. To do what he felt was right. Or, right or wrong, to do what heart and head prompted.