Prescott stiffened in his turn and said with equal coldness:
"I request you, Madam or Miss, whichever you may be, to come with me at once, as we waste time here."
He led the way through the silent city, lying then under the moonlight, back to the little street in which stood the wooden cottage, neither speaking on the way. They passed nobody, not even a dog howled at them, and when they stood before the cottage it, too, was dark and silent. Then Prescott said:
"I do not know who lives there and I do not know who you are, but I shall consider my task ended, for the present at least, when its doors hide you from me."
He spoke in the cold, indifferent tone that he had assumed when he detected the irony in her voice. But now she changed again.
"Perhaps I owe you some thanks, Captain Prescott," she said.
"Perhaps, but you need not give them. I trust, madam, and I do not say it with any intent of impoliteness, that we shall never meet again."
"You speak wisely, Captain Prescott," she said.
But she raised the hood that hid her brow and gave him a glance from dark blue eyes that a second time brought to Prescott that strange tremour at once a cause of surprise and anger. Then she opened the door of the cottage and disappeared within.
He stood for a few moments in the street looking at the little house and then he hurried to his home.