Eric brought the doctors and the nurses ... but Ranny had done better. Ranny had stirred up Scotland Yard. When Eric told him the nurse had said I was for ever raving about barred windows, Ranny had flung out of my aunt's drawing-room and was gone a day and a night.
Yes, he came back. He had found the house. He got a warrant, and he went with the police when they made their search. He had seen the woman. She brazened it out. She had never heard of either Bettina or me.
My story? Oh, very possible, she said, that I and my sister had been "seeing life." No uncommon thing for young women to lie about their escapades. "Drugged?" the usual excuse.
The next day I asked them to let me see Ranny. They refused.
I did not sleep that night.
The doctor came earlier the next morning and was troubled. "What is it?" he said.
I told him. "I will promise to be very quiet," I said. I would promise anything if they would only let me see Ranny.
Mrs. Harborough went out and sent a message. Mr. Dallas was staying quite near, she said. But I waited for him for a thousand years. And then ... a footstep on the stair.
My heart drew quivering back from the two-edged knife of Wanting-to-know and Dreading-to-know. Then all that poignancy of feeling fell to dulness, for the step was not Ranny's and not Eric's. I had never heard this slow, uncertain footfall.
The door opened, and it was Ranny.