he helped herself, her eyes fell carelessly on
the address that Haddo had left. She picked it up and read it aloud.

'Who on earth lives there?' she asked.

'I don't know at all,' answered Margaret.

She braced herself for further questions, but Susie, without interest,
put down the sheet of paper and struck a match.

Margaret was ashamed. Her nature was singularly truthful, and it troubled
her extraordinarily that she had lied to her greatest friend. Something
stronger than herself seemed to impel her. She would have given much to
confess her two falsehoods, but had not the courage. She could not bear
that Susie's implicit trust in her straightforwardness should be
destroyed; and the admission that Oliver Haddo had been there would
entail a further acknowledgment of the nameless horrors she had
witnessed. Susie would think her mad.

There was a knock at the door; and Margaret, her nerves shattered by all
that she had endured, could hardly restrain a cry of terror. She feared
that Haddo had returned. But it was Arthur Burdon. She greeted him with
a passionate relief that was unusual, for she was by nature a woman of
great self-possession. She felt excessively weak, physically exhausted
as though she had gone a long journey, and her mind was highly wrought.
Margaret remembered that her state had been the same on her first arrival
in Paris, when, in her eagerness to get a preliminary glimpse of its
marvels, she had hurried till her bones ached from one celebrated
monument to another. They began to speak of trivial things. Margaret
tried to join calmly in the conversation, but her voice sounded
unnatural, and she fancied that more than once Arthur gave her a curious
look. At length she could control herself no longer and burst into a
sudden flood of tears. In a moment, uncomprehending but affectionate, he
caught her in his arms. He asked tenderly what was the matter. He sought
to comfort her. She wept ungovernably, clinging to him for protection.

'Oh, it's nothing,' she gasped. 'I don't know what is the matter with me.
I'm only nervous and frightened.'

Arthur had an idea that women were often afflicted with what he described
by the old-fashioned name of vapours, and was not disposed to pay much
attention to this vehement distress. He soothed her as he would have done
a child.

'Oh, take care of me, Arthur. I'm so afraid that some dreadful thing will
happen to me. I want all your strength. Promise that you'll neve