Guest gave a sharp look round, but the room was too dim for much to be seen. It did not, however, by that light appear to be neglected.
There was an angular look in Stratton’s attitude which startled Guest, and made him step forward with his heart beating heavily. The unfastened door was terribly suggestive of the entrance of a man who hardly knew what he was doing, and he now saw that a hat was lying on the floor as if it had fallen from the table. In an ordinary way such ideas would not have occurred to him, but he had twice over visited that room, and been startled by matters which had suggested Stratton’s intention of doing away with his life.
All this made Guest walk quickly up behind his friend’s chair, and his hand was raised to touch him, but he drew back, for a sigh, long-drawn and piteous, broke the silence of the dim room—such a sigh as escapes from a sleeping child lying exhausted after some passionate burst of temper.
Guest, too, drew a long breath as he crept away softly, looking over his shoulder till he reached the doors, through which he passed, and hurried over the few steps along the landing to where Myra and Edie stood shivering in the cold, dark entry leading to Brettison’s chambers.
“Oh, how long you have been,” whispered Edie, to whom Myra was clinging.
“Come, Mrs Barron,” said Guest, without heeding the remark, as he took Myra’s hand, which struck cold through her glove, and drew it through his arm.
“Wait there, Edie.”
The girl uttered a faint ejaculation, but said nothing, and Myra walked silently to Stratton’s door, and as Guest raised his hand to draw it toward him she pressed it back.
“Wait,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “My brain seems to swim. Mr Guest, let me think for a moment of what I am going to do before it is too late.”
Guest waited, half supporting her, for she hung heavily upon his arm, but she did not speak.