Enid's voice had sunk to a passionate whisper. The hand that she laid on David's shoulder was trembling strangely. At that moment he would've done anything for her. A shaft of light filtered from the hall into the porch, and lit up the paper that the girl thrust upon Steel.
"Now write," she commanded. "Ask no questions, but write what I ask, and trust me implicitly."
David nodded. After all, he reflected, he could not possibly get himself into a worse mess than he was in already. And he felt that he could trust the girl by his side. Her beauty, her earnestness, and her obvious sincerity touched him.
"Write," Enid whispered. "Say, 'See nothing and notice nothing, I implore you. Only agree with everything that Dr. Walker says, and leave the room as quickly as possible!' Now sign your name. We can go into the drawing-room and wait till Dr. Bell comes down. You are merely a friend of his. I will see that he has this paper at once."
Enid led the way into the drawing-room. She gave no reasons for the weird strangeness of the place, it was no time for explanations. As for Steel, he gazed around him in fascinated astonishment. A novelist ever on the look-out for new scenes and backgrounds, the aspect of the room fascinated him. He saw the dust rising in clouds, he saw the wilted flowers, he noted the overturned table, obviously untouched and neglected for years, and he wondered. Then he heard the babel of discordant voices overhead. What a sad house it was, and how dominant was the note of tragedy.
Meanwhile, with no suspicion of the path he was treading, Bell had gone upstairs. He came at length to the door of the room where the sick girl lay. There was a subdued light inside and the faint suggestion of illness that clings to the chamber of the sufferer. Bell caught a glimpse of a white figure lying motionless in bed. It was years now since he had acted thus in a professional capacity, but the old quietness and caution came back by instinct. As he would have entered Margaret Henson came out and closed the door.
"You are not going in there," she said. "No, no. Everything of mine you touch you blight and wither. If the girl is to die, let her die in peace."
She would have raised her voice high, but a lightning glance from Bell quieted her. It was not exactly madness that he had to deal with, and he knew it. The woman required firm, quiet treatment. Dr. Walker stood alongside, anxious and nervous. The man with the quiet practice of the well-to-do doctor was not used to scenes of this kind.
"You have something to conceal," Bell said, sternly. "Open the door."
"Really, my dear sir," Walker said, fussily. "Really, I fancy that under the circumstances—"