She kept calling into the 'phone.
Nothing! No reply! The voice was gone.
She stood there staring wildly through the darkness. Black ... for her mother ... dead! No, no ... it couldn't be true! That voice ... yes, it was like the horrible voice that had called out the other night ... she knew now why it was familiar....
Terror-stricken, the receiver dropped from her hand.
Dead! Her mother dead! It couldn't be true! She began to grope around her. The chair—her dressing gown. Her hands felt the garment. She snatched it up, flung it around her, and stumbled to the door and along the hall to Captain Francis Newcombe's room. And here she knocked mechanically, but, without listening for response, opened the door, and, stumbling still in a blind way, crossed the threshold.
"Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!" she sobbed out.
Captain Francis Newcombe was not asleep. Quite apart from the fact that he had only got to bed but a very short while before, the cards that night had gone too badly against him, and there was a savage sense of fury upon him that would not quiet down. And now, as he heard his door open and heard Polly call, he was out of bed and into a dressing gown in an instant. Polly out there in his sitting room—at half-past four in the morning! And she was sobbing. She sobbed now as he heard her call again:
"Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!"
This was queer—damned queer! His face was suddenly set in the darkness as he crossed the bedroom floor—but his voice was quiet, cool, reassuring, as he answered her: "Right-o, Polly! I'm coming!"
He switched on the light as he entered the sitting room. It brought a quick, startled cry over the sobs.