n of that
conservatory sort of place where you have put him. I'll try to find
somebody we can trust to look after him. Meantime, I will leave the case
to you."

CHAPTER VIII

Directly I had shut the door after the doctor I started shouting for
Therese. "Come down at once, you wretched hypocrite," I yelled at the
foot of the stairs in a sort of frenzy as though I had been a second
Ortega. Not even an echo answered me; but all of a sudden a small flame
flickered descending from the upper darkness and Therese appeared on the
first floor landing carrying a lighted candle in front of a livid, hard
face, closed against remorse, compassion, or mercy by the meanness of her
righteousness and of her rapacious instincts. She was fully dressed in
that abominable brown stuff with motionless folds, and as I watched her
coming down step by step she might have been made of wood. I stepped
back and pointed my finger at the darkness of the passage leading to the
studio. She passed within a foot of me, her pale eyes staring straight
ahead, her face still with disappointment and fury. Yet it is only my
surmise. She might have been made thus inhuman by the force of an
invisible purpose. I waited a moment, then, stealthily, with extreme
caution, I opened the door of the so-called Captain Blunt's room.

The glow of embers was all but out. It was cold and dark in there; but
before I closed the door behind me the dim light from the hall showed me
Dona Rita standing on the very same spot where I had left her, statuesque
in her night-dress. Even after I shut the door she loomed up enormous,
indistinctly rigid and inanimate. I picked up the candelabra, groped for
a candle all over the carpet, found one, and lighted it. All that time
Dona Rita didn't stir. When I turned towards her she seemed to be slowly
awakening from a trance. She was deathly pale and by contrast the
melted, sapphire-blue of her eyes looked black as coal. They moved a
little in my direction, incurious, recognizing me slowly. But when they
had recognized me completely she raised her hands and hid her face in
them. A whole minute or more passed. Then I said in a low tone: "Look
at me," and she let them fall slowly as if accepting the inevitable.

"Shall I make up the fire?" . . . I waited. "Do you hear me?" She made
no sound and with the tip of my finger I touched her bare shoulder. But
for its elasticity it might have been frozen. At once I looked