"You will be back to dinner, ma'am?" she inquired.
"No. I shall not want dinner. I may not be back till ten—perhaps eleven. If I am late, no one need wait up." She walked to a mirror and began nervously smoothing her ruffled hair, while Norris left the room, and returned with the desired garments.
With the same nervous haste she put on her hat, tied the thick veil over her face, and allowed herself to be helped into her cloak. Then, without a word, she crossed the drawing-room, passed through the hall of the flat, and entered the lift.
At the street-door she was compelled to wait while the hall-porter called a cab; and the momentary delay almost overtaxed her patience. An audible sound of relief escaped her when the clatter of hoofs and jingle of bells announced that the wait was over.
"St. George's Terrace!" she ordered, in a low voice, and it seemed to her perturbed mind that even the stolid attendant must find something portentous in the words; then she sank into the corner of the cab and closed her eyes, as she heard her order repeated to the cabman, and felt the horse swing forward into the stream of traffic.
More than once she altered her position as the distance between Knightsbridge and St. George's Terrace lessened. She was devoured by impatience and yet paralyzed by dread. Once, as the cab halted in a block of traffic, she heard a clock strike seven, and at the sound the blood rushed to her face as she thought of the nearness of her ordeal; but an instant later she drew out her watch to verify the time, and paled with sudden apprehension as she realized that the clock was slow.
So her mind oscillated until the cab drew up beside the curb; and, with a nervous start, she heard the cabman open the trap-door.
"What number, lady?" he asked.
