"Will they for you?"
"I can do it for you," he said, under his breath, and he stood up.
I thought he meant I was to make trial then of that terrible passage to the door. But was it not better to be where Betty was, whatever came—Betty and I together—than Betty alone with those devouring-eyed men, and I with a maniac out in the hall!
"I cannot leave my sister!" I said.
He stood in front of me, masking me from the others. "Haven't I made you understand? If you don't leave the room with me, she will leave it with Whitby-Dawson."
"No! No!"
He hushed me. "She won't know why—but she'll do it. And she won't come back again. She would probably be on her way to Paris this time to-morrow." He pulled a great cushion up to hide my face. And then he turned and made a feint of getting an illustrated paper off the table. He kept his eye on the others. There was some little commotion, during which Betty had risen. She left the sofa and sat on the piano-stool. She was laughing excitedly.
The man came back to me with the illustrated paper. He sat down closer to me, and held the paper open for a shield. But he held it strangely, with his arm across the picture. The reading part was in French. I had to crane to see over the top—Betty twisting round on the piano-stool, and touching the keys in a provoking way; the two men teasing her to sing.
I have lived over every instant of that hour, until the smallest detail is a stain indelible upon my mind. I have no trouble in remembering. My trouble is to be able to forget.
I hear again that muted voice behind the paper saying: "But for the collie-dog story, I wouldn't have dared to risk this. Everything depends on your nerve." And then he looked at me curiously, and wanted to know if I had not heard there were such places—— "I won't say like this. This is a masterpiece of devilry. And masterpieces are never plentiful."