“Then what—” she stammered, all at sea again.
“I wants to get away from the Artcic,” he explained. “I wants to get as far away as I can.”
“Well, you can’t get any farther away than this without running into the ocean.”
John tiptoed nearer. He spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“He brought it with him,” he explained.
He turned his eyes towards the stairs again.
“What did he bring?”
“It,” answered John. “The Thing under the bed.”
“He did? Why, he was never within a thousand miles of—”
She checked herself just in time. John’s eyes had begun to open wide. She was in a position more embarrassing than any which had yet grown out of this course of deceit. If there were any one thing more vital than cleanliness which she had impressed upon her servants, it was truthfulness. She had held it before their eyes as a clear translucent crystal. And now was she to be forced to violate it herself? Was she to be thrust into the position of being untruthful to her own butler? Her weak limbs shook beneath her at her helplessness. Her cheeks turned scarlet.