ef collision to restrain her, but she had
wrenched herself free so violently that she had torn the strap which
held her gown over one shoulder. Then as she reeled back, with a wildly
ungoverned gesture she ran her fingers through her hair until it fell in
tangled waves about her shoulders. It was perhaps a full minute before
she could speak and while she stood recovering her breath, Stuart
Farquaharson looked helplessly down at the instrument which she had
succeeded in rendering useless.

With blazing eyes and quivering nostrils, the woman rushed headlong into
explanation, accusation and pleading.

"If you telephoned that I was here he'd try to kill me. I tell you I'm
done with him! I hate him--hate him; don't you understand? He's been
drinking again and he's a beast. That's why I came ... that's why I had
to come.... I came to you because I thought you'd understand ... because
I thought ... you ... cared for me."

"I care enough for you to try to prevent your ruining your life by a
single piece of lunacy," he told her as he sought to steady her with the
directness of his gaze. "You don't have to go on with Holbury if you
choose to leave him, but this is the one place of all others for you to
avoid." He cast a hasty glance about him and then, hurrying to the front
of the room, closed the door and drew the blinds. For a half hour he
argued with forced calmness, but the ears to which he spoke were deaf to
everything save the wild instinct of escape.

"Here you are in a house that sits in full view from the road: doors and
windows open: you with your hair streaming and your gown disordered;
hairpins strewn about: the telephone dead. Now, I've got to walk to
your house and tell him."

Under the level insistence of his eyes she had fallen back a pace and
stood holding the unsupported gown over her bosom, but when he finished
with that final announcement, which seemed to her a threat, she sprang
forward again and threw her arms about him, not in an embrace but with
the instinct of a single idea: to prevent his carrying out his announced
intention.

Stuart attempted gently to disengage himself, but the soft arms clung
and the figure was convulsed with its agitation. "No, no!" she kept
repeating. "You sha'n't go. You sha'n't leave me here alone.... I
couldn't stand it."

"You walked two miles to get here and that took you about forty-five
minutes," he reminded her. "You've been here a half hour. Do you fancy
your husba