She gasped the words breathlessly. This thing must be stopped. At all costs it must be stopped.
He was still smiling in that odd, drawn way. She did not understand his look. He raised his shoulders at her words.
“He may. What of it?”
“Oh, you mustn’t go!” she said. “It would be madness—madness.”
“I have had my answer,” said Rotherby.
“You have?” She stared at him. “What is it? Quick! Tell me!”
He pulled a telegram from his pocket and gave it to her. She opened it with shaking hands. Three words only—brief, characteristic, uncompromising! “To-night at ten.” No signature of any sort—only the bald reply!
She gazed at it in silence. And before her inward sight there rose a vision of the man himself as she had seen him last, terrible in his wrath, overwhelming in his condemnation. Yet her heart leapt to the vision. He was the man she loved.
She looked up. “You mustn’t go,” she said. “Or if you do—I shall come too.”
“No,” said Rotherby.