"Nonsense! You know it is not Cris. Cris has his latch-key."
Another alarming peal.
"He can see the light in my dressing-room," she urged, with parched lips. "Oh, James, let me go down."
"I tell you—No."
There was no appeal against it. She knew there might be none. But she clasped her hands in agony, and gave utterance to the distress at her heart.
"Where will he sleep? Where can he go, if we deny him entrance?"
"Where he chooses. He does not enter here."
And Mrs. Chattaway went back to her dressing-room, and listened in despair to further appeals from the bell. Appeals which she might not answer.