"You must shut that door."
"I won't."
Elsie wrung her hands in desperation. Outside on the landing, three paces from where they were standing, Nigel Rawnsley had paused to light a cigarette.
"It's about—the woman who was here," she whispered as he began to descend the stairs.
"Was it you?"
Elsie shook her head.
"No, say it! say it! Yes or no."
The sound of Nigel's descending footsteps had abruptly ceased at the angle of the stairs.
"For God's sake come back inside here a minute!" Elsie implored her.
"I won't, it's no good; I shouldn't believe you whatever you said. If you weren't here, why did you say you were? And if you were—— Oh, let me go, let me go!"