“I don’t know. No name is given.”
“Why—for what reason does he wish to see me? Could he not have called at Pembridge Gardens, or even written making a secret appointment in Kensington Gardens or in the Park?”
“To that I am quite unable to give any reply, for I’m in ignorance like yourself.”
“But is it that brutal fellow who threw me down and tore my clothes last night?” she asked. “Look!” and she showed her torn blouse.
“I think not,” was his response. “But those rents look a bit ugly, don’t they,” he added. “Come through into the sitting-room, and see if we can’t find a needle and cotton. I used to keep a travelling housewife, full of all sorts of buttons and needles and things.”
So the pair passed along the short, narrow passage of the flat into the sitting-room which she so vividly recollected the night before. Before her was the couch upon which the man who had called himself “Wetherton” had flung her fainting and insensible.
After a brief search in the drawers of an old oak bureau, over in the corner, the stranger produced a small roll of khaki, in the pockets of which were all sorts of cottons, buttons, needles and odds and ends, the requisites of a travelling bachelor.
She laughed as she selected a needle and a reel of cotton, and then retired into the bedroom where, for a full quarter of an hour, she sat alone mending her torn garments.
The man remained in the sitting-room, staring out of the window into the street below, damp and gloomy on that winter’s morning.
“A fine home-coming indeed!” he muttered to himself. “They’ve put a nice thing upon me—abduct a girl, and then leave her in my charge! Jim’s afraid of being connected with the affair, that’s evident. I wonder who she is, and why they want her? Devilish pretty, and no mistake. It really seems a blackguardly shame to treat her badly, and wreck her young life, as they no doubt intend. By Gad! Jim and his friends are cruel as the grave. Poor little thing!” And he sighed and, crossing the room, applied a match to the fire that had already been laid.