"Since your claim to proprietorship is so strong," I said as I crossed to the hall door, and, after locking it, pocketed the key, "there are certain features of it I want you to explain to me."
"What do you mean?" she asked, once more on her feet.
"I want to know," I said, moving toward the curtained door beside her, "just who or what is in that front room?"
The look of terror came back to her white face. She even stood with her back against the door, as though to keep me from opening it, making an instinctive gesture for silence as I stood facing her.
"I'm going to find out what is in that room," I proclaimed, unmoved by the agony I saw written on her guilty face.
"Oh, believe me," she said, in supplicatory tones, a little above a whisper, "it will do no good. It will only make you sorry you interfered in this."
"But you've made it my duty to interfere."
"No; no; you're only blundering into something where you can do no good, where you have no right."
"Then I intend to blunder into that room!" And I tore the portière from her grasp and flung it to one side.
"Wait," she whispered, white-faced and panting close beside me. "I'll tell you everything. I'll explain it—everything."