Then came that hand on her shoulder, whose touch, although they had never, she remembered, even shaken hands, she knew before lifting her eyes to his.
When he had left her, although her tears were soon dry, she felt a curious restlessness of mind, and what she would have called "an excited tiredness," and she stretched her body on the cushions of the settee for a moment's relaxation, which slipped at once into half an hour's sleep.
A whisper awoke her. She raised her head. The voice was behind her. Cautiously, kept silent between fear and curiosity, she rose and turned her face to the alcove.
A man was there, with his back towards her—not one of her men. His clothes were grey; his right hand was on the open door of the safe, the left holding a small parcel wrapped in white paper, and, separate, an envelope.
Amaryllis knew what he held, and the courage rose in her to hold back the scream which was coming, until she should have tight hold of the thief—the fingers of both hands, she hoped, fast in his collar.
She was close behind him, and he was locking the safe, when suddenly he felt or heard her presence and swung round.
It was the face of Melchard; astonishment and disgust for a fatal moment took away her breath. Before she could scream, his hands were on her mouth and naked neck, pushing her roughly backward until she was against the right-hand curtain and the corner of the wall. From behind the curtain, it seemed, two small, soft hands stole over her shoulders and gripped her neck, squeezing it savagely.
Melchard took his left hand from her mouth, and as she tried in vain to scream in spite of the double grip on her throat, he crammed a handful of the linen curtain between her tongue and palate with his long fingers.
"Take your cat's claws off her neck," she heard him mutter. "I'll keep her quiet."
And that was all before she fainted.