"Humour her," he said, and quoted a line from a comedy. "What is the use of a friend if you can't make a stranger of him?"
I followed Fanny into the passage.
"You've quite made up your mind, sir?"
"Quite, Fanny."
"Take this, sir," she said, pushing a hard substance into my hands. "If anything happens in the night, spring it."
It was a policeman's rattle.
"I don't know where Lemon got it from," she said, "but we've had it in the house for years."
"Pshaw, Fanny!" I said, forcing the rattle back into her hands. "You are too ridiculous!"
Yet when I was once again face to face with Devlin, with the door locked, I could not help thinking that I was acting a perilous part in putting myself, as it were, into his power. He might kill me while I slept. I determined to keep awake, and to lie down in my clothes.
"Have some tea?" he asked.