"Let us ask you that same question: Why aren't you home and in bed? What are you doing here at this hour?"
"After everybody had gone home, I ran up to your room, Sophy—and—and you were gone. You weren't in the house. I looked everywhere; and you'd disappeared, as if the earth had opened and swallowed you." Alicia's voice was trembling.
"Oh, Sophy, I was so frightened, so horribly frightened! I kept thinking every minute you must come. I kept looking and waiting, and still you didn't come. I telephoned Doctor Geddes, when I couldn't stand it any longer. And then The Author came down-stairs. And oh, Sophy, there was such an unearthly, clammy, waiting sort of feeling in the house—all those lights, all those empty rooms—I felt as if something terrible must be happening!" She clung to me as she spoke, kissing me, and shook, and wept. "And when you still didn't come, and we couldn't find you anywhere, The Author suggested that we should come over here and enlist Mr. Jelnik.
"When we got here, there wasn't a soul in this house. Not even the dog. We went back to Hynds House, and walked through our garden, and then came back here, because we didn't know what else to do. Oh, Sophy!" I patted her shoulders, mumbling that she mustn't cry, it was ail right.
"Miss Gaines, I am dreadfully sorry you should have been frightened. But there really wasn't the least occasion for alarm. Because Miss Smith was with me," said Mr. Jelnik calmly.
Alicia looked at him, trying to read his face in the wan light. Her world, as it were, was rocking under her feet. She looked at me; and I said nothing. To save my life I couldn't speak of Jessamine Hynds then, nor talk coherently of that night's experience. I couldn't betray Nicholas Jelnik's secrets, nor mention the Watcher in the Dark, nor that dreadful red-walled room. So I merely patted Alicia's shoulder, while she held fast to me as if I might again disappear.
"That is exactly what we should like you to explain, Mr. Jelnik, if you please," said The Author, with deadly politeness. "You must pardon us if we disagree with your assertion that Miss Gaines had no real occasion for alarm."
"Miss Smith and I," said Mr. Jelnik, stiffening, at the tone, "found it absolute necessary to leave Hynds House for a short while to-night, to attend to—an affair of some importance to us both, but which concerns no one else on earth." Under the grave politeness his voice had an edge of irritation. "I repeat that I am sincerely sorry Miss Alicia was frightened. For my share in that, I crave her pardon. I ask all of you to accept this apology as an explanation which is final."
"I for one shall do no such thing!" cried The Author, hotly. "Are we impertinent children to be thus lightly dismissed? Of course, if Miss Smith herself—"
"You have neither right nor authority to cross-question Miss Smith," interposed Mr. Jelnik, sharply. But Doctor Geddes broke in, with mounting anger and astonishment: