Once more the young girl’s voice rang out like a bugle blast, and then, to her unbounded delight, it was answered from somewhere.
Cry after cry issued rapidly from her lips. They were coming to save her. She could hear footsteps and voices.
As the door was burst in a gust of wind extinguished her lamp, and Marion sank down upon the divan in utter helplessness.
“Miss Marlowe! Is it possible! Thank Heaven, I am in time!”
It was Howard Everett who spoke, and with a cry of joy Marion answered him.
A score of burly policemen seemed to fill the place, and Everett drew her closely to his side as they darted about after the Celestials.
“They are raiding the place,” he whispered in her ear. “How fortunate that the attempt was so opportune! For once in my life my good angel must have guided me! Come, let us get out of this,” he added, leading Marion to the door and half lifting her up the steps to the narrow hallway.
“But Carlotta! Have they found her?” asked Marion, in a whisper.
“The woman is dead! I did not mean she should escape me,” was her companion’s answer. “It seems she had heart disease, and the opium killed her. Well, at last my friend Graham’s death has been avenged, but your presence here, Miss Marlowe! I cannot understand it!”
Marion held out her hand to him as she was being hurried along.