The intruder smiled indulgently into the Chinaman’s earnest, upturned face.
“Foo Cha,” he said, “that is enough. Take this card to your master, Mr. Sabin.”
Foo Cha was ready to begin another torrent of expostulations, but in the gas-light he met the new-comer’s steadfast gaze, and he was silent. The stranger was dressed in the garb of a superior working man, but his speech and manner indicated a very different station. Foo Cha took the card and left him in the passage. He made his way softly into the sitting-room, and as he entered he turned the key in the lock behind him; there, at any rate, was a moment or two of respite.
“Master,” he said, “there is a man there whom we cannot stop. When me tell him you no here, he laugh at me. He will see you; he no go way. He laugh again when I try shut the door. He give me card; I no understand what on it.”
Mr. Sabin stretched out his hand and took the card from the Chinaman’s fingers. There seemed to be one or two words upon it, traced in a delicate, sloping handwriting. Mr. Sabin had snatched at the little piece of pasteboard with some impatience, but the moment he had read those few words a remarkable change came over him. He started as though he had received an electric shock; the pupils of his eyes seemed hideously dilated; the usual pallor of his face was merged in a ghastly whiteness. And then, after the first shock, came a look of deep and utter despair; his hand fell to his side, a half-muttered imprecation escaped from his trembling lips, yet he laid the card gently, even with reverence, upon the desk before him.
“You can show him in, Foo Cha,” he directed, in a low tone; “show him in at once.”
Foo Cha glided out disappointed. Something had gone terribly wrong, he was sure of that. He went slowly downstairs, his eyes fixed upon the dark figure standing motionless in the dimly-lit hall. He drew a sharp breath, which sounded through his yellow, protuberant teeth like a hiss. A single stroke of that long knife—it would be so easy. Then he remembered the respect with which Mr. Sabin had treated that card, and he sighed. Perhaps it would be a mistake; it might make evil worse. He beckoned to the stranger, and conducted him upstairs.
Mr. Sabin received his visitor standing. He was still very pale, but his face had resumed its wonted impassiveness. In the dim lamp-lit room he could see very little of his visitor, only a thick-set man with dark eyes and a closely-cropped black beard. He was roughly dressed, yet held himself well. The two men eyed one another steadily for several moments, before any speech passed between them.
“You are surprised,” the stranger said; “I do not wonder at it. Perhaps—you have been much engrossed, it is said—you had even forgotten.”