From the vocaphone had come a sound like the ringing of a bell.
"Sh!" whispered Lucille hoarsely. "Here she comes now. Didn't I tell you? Into the next room!"
A moment later came a knock at a door and Lucille's silken rustle as she hurried to open it.
"How do you do, Lucille?" we heard a sweetly tremulous voice repeated by the faithful little vocaphone.
"Comment vous portez-vous, Mademoiselle?"
"Tres bien."
"Mademoiselle honours her poor Lucille beyond her dreams. Will you not be seated here in this easy chair?"
"My God!" exclaimed Garrick, starting back from the vocaphone. "She is there alone. Mrs. de Lancey is not with her. Oh, if we could only have prevented this!"
I had recognized, too, even in the mechanical reproduction, the voice of Violet Winslow. It came as a shock. Even though I had been expecting some such thing for hours, still the reality meant just as much, perhaps more.
Independent, self-reliant, Violet Winslow had gone alone on an act of mercy and charity, and it had taken her into a situation full of danger with her faithless maid.