"B14, are ye waukin? Ye're to dress and come wi' me."
"Hullo! is that Mr. Mackenzie? What's up?"
"It's a veesitor for ye."
"A visitor at this time of night? Here's an exciting go! Who is it—an officer? Big man in the R.F.C.?"
Mackenzie shook his head. "I canna tell ye, for I havena seen him."
"Now I wonder what good you think you are?" said Gardiner, sitting up, laughing, blinking at the light. "Rousing me out of my beauty sleep! Yes, I beg your pardon, sir, and all that, but I'm coming out quite soon, you know. Hold the light, do you mind, and let me find my socks?"
He laughed in self-defense, and he asked questions for form's sake; but he knew all the time that this was his doom. Only an urgent messenger would have been admitted at this hour. It was Wandesforde, come to tell him how she had died. That thought went with him down the twilit passages, it stood sentinel before the yellow-glimmering door of the visitors' room. "Ye've half-an-hour," said Mackenzie in business-like tones as he turned the handle. Gardiner drew a long breath and walked through the specter into the room.
A long-legged officer stood up. Wandesforde? No. Oh, good God!
"She's safe," said Denis instantly. "Here, hold on, old man; it's all right!"