"Go on, Miss Poole. I know, I know. But what does it matter in such a time as this?"
"Nothing at all," she answered in a resolute voice. "I was engaged to Sir William when I found out that my affection was going elsewhere—Guy, Mr. Rathbone——"
"You needn't go into the past, Miss Poole," Donald broke in, "tell me about last night."
"I was with Sir William at supper-time. There was a remarkable scene. It was a sort of triumph for him, and I was with him, every one included me in it. It was, obviously, generally assumed that we had become engaged once more. On the way home, Sir William again asked me to be his wife. I told him that I could not give him an answer then. I said that I would tell him to-night. He is coming to Curzon Street to-night."
"I beg you, I implore you to wait."
Megbie's words were so grave, he seemed so terribly in earnest, that the girl shrank from them, as one would shrink from blows.
The same thought began to lurk in the eyes of the woman and the man, the same incredible and yet frightful thought.
Marjorie's cheeks were almost grey in colour. To Megbie, as he watched her, she seemed to have grown older suddenly. The lustre seemed to him to have gone out of her hair.
"I reached home," she said. "Mother made me take a cup of beef-tea, and I went to my room. I was preparing for bed, indeed I was brushing my hair before the mirror, when a curious sense of disturbance and almost of fear came over me. I felt as if there was another presence in the room. Now my looking-glass is a very large one indeed. It commands the whole of the room. The whole of the room is reflected in it without any part left out, except of course which I could see where I sat. When this strange feeling of another presence came over me, I thought it was merely reaction after a terribly exciting night. I looked into the glass and saw that the room was absolutely empty. Still the sensation grew. It became so strong at last that I turned round. And there, Mr. Megbie, I tell you in the utmost bewilderment, but with extreme certainty, there, though the mirror showed nothing at all, a figure was standing, the figure of a man. It was not three feet away."
Megbie broke in upon her narrative.