"You must be mad," she exclaimed, slowly, the words falling from her lips like lead. "He was here only a few minutes ago, and left me with a promise that he would return at once. You cannot be correct."
"I met him leaving the house, and——"
Before he could finish his sentence she flew to the door and tore it open. The captain met her there.
"Is it true that Leonard Chandler has entered a charge against me?" she demand, her voice sounding like nothing human in its terrible hoarseness.
"Quite true!" returned the captain, with perfect politeness.
"What charge?"
"Grand larceny."
The woman fell back against the casing of the doorway.
She made a curious picture standing there with that expression of hideous agony upon her pallid features, her throat and shoulders bare, her nude arms thrown upward.
There was not a man in the room who did not admire her in spite of the serious charges made against her. Lynde Pyne came to her assistance, and tenderly drew her back into the room, while he closed the door. She raised herself in his arms after a moment of inactivity, like a fiend.