“And the voice? Should you know that again?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “He spoke in quite a low tone, rather indistinctly. And he said only a few words—something about having come to make some inquiries about the cost of a wax model. Then he stepped into the lobby and shut the outer door, and immediately, without another word, he seized my right arm and struck at me. But I saw the knife in his hand, and as I called out I snatched at it with my left hand, so that it missed my body and I felt it cut my right arm. Then I got hold of his wrist. But he had heard you coming, and wrenched himself free. The next moment he had opened the door and rushed out, shutting it behind him.”
She paused, and then added in a shaking voice: “If you had not been here—if I had been alone⸺”
“We won’t think of that, Marion. You were not alone, and you will never be again in this place. I shall see to that.”
At this she gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and looked into my face with the pallid ghost of a smile.
“Then I shan’t be frightened any more,” she murmured; and, closing her eyes, she lay for a while, breathing quietly as if asleep. She looked very delicate and frail, with her waxen cheeks and the dark shadows under her eyes, but still I noted a faint tinge of colour stealing back into her lips. I gazed down at her with fond anxiety, as a mother might look at a sleeping child that had just passed the crisis of a dangerous illness. Of the bare chance that had snatched her from imminent death I would not allow myself to think. The horror of that moment was too fresh for the thought to be endurable. Instead I began to occupy myself with the practical question as to how she was to be got home. It was a long way to North Grove—some two miles I reckoned—too far for her to walk in her present weak state; and there was the fog. Unless it lifted it would be impossible for her to find her way; and I could give her no help, as I was a stranger to this locality. Nor was it by any means safe; for our enemy might still be lurking near, waiting for the opportunity that the fog would offer.
I was still turning over these difficulties when she opened her eyes and looked up at me a little shyly.
“I’m afraid I’ve been rather a baby,” she said, “but I am much better now. Hadn’t I better get up?”
“No,” I answered. “Lie quiet and rest. I am trying to think how you are to be got home. Didn’t you say something about a caretaker?”
“Yes; a woman in the little house next door, which really belongs to the studio. Daddy used to leave the key with her at night, so that she could clean up. But I just fetch her in when I want her help. Why do you ask?”