It felt like a metal tube a couple of inches in diameter, a foot or so in length, passably heavy. He fumbled with it impatiently. "However the dickens," he wondered audibly, "does the infernal machine work?" As it happened, the thing worked with disconcerting abruptness as his untrained fingers fell hapchance on the spring. A sudden glare again smote him in the face, and at the same instant, from a point not a yard away, apparently, an inarticulate cry rang out upon the stillness.
Heart in his mouth, he stepped back, lowering the lamp (which impishly went out) and lifting a protecting forearm.
"Who's that?" he demanded harshly.
A strangled sob of terror answered him, blurred by a swift rush of skirts, and in a breath his shattered nerves quieted and a glimmer of common sense penetrated the murk anger and fear had bred in his brain. He understood, and stepped forward, catching blindly at the darkness with eager hands.
"Miss Calendar!" he cried guardedly. "Miss Calendar, it is I—Philip Kirkwood!"
There was a second sob, of another caliber than the first; timid fingers brushed his, and a hand, warm and fragile, closed upon his own in a passion of relief and gratitude.
"Oh, I am so g-glad!" It was Dorothy Calendar's voice, beyond mistake. "I—I didn't know what t-to t-think.... When the light struck your face I was sure it was you, but when I called, you answered in a voice so strange,—not like yours at all! ... Tell me," she pleaded, with palpable effort to steady herself; "what has happened?"
"I think, perhaps," said Kirkwood uneasily, again troubled by his racing pulses, "perhaps you can do that better than I."
"Oh!" said the voice guiltily; her fingers trembled on his, and were gently withdrawn. "I was so frightened," she confessed after a little pause, "so frightened that I hardly understand ... But you? How did you—?"
"I worried about you," he replied, in a tone absurdly apologetic. "Somehow it didn't seem right. It was none of my business, of course, but ... I couldn't help coming back. This fellow, whoever he is—don't worry; he's unconscious—slipped into the house in a manner that seemed to me suspicious. I hardly know why I followed, except that he left the door an open invitation to interference ..."