ng and go away.

The knock was not repeated. Dead silence reigned. And then quickly
and decidedly the door opened, and Nick Ratcliffe stood upon the
threshold. The light struck full upon his face as he halted--a clever,
whimsical face that might mask almost any quality good or bad.

"May I come in, Miss Roscoe?" he asked.

For she had not moved at his appearance. She lay as one dead. But as
he spoke she uncovered her face, and terror incarnate stared wildly at
him from her starting eyes. He entered without further ceremony,
and closed the door behind him. In the shaded lamplight his features
seemed to twitch as if he wanted to smile. So at least it seemed to
her wrought-up fancy.

He gazed greedily at the plate of rice on the table as he came
forward. "Great Jupiter!" he said. "What a sumptuous repast!"

The total freedom from all anxiety or restraint with which he made
this simple observation served to restore to some degree the girl's
tottering self-control. She sat up, sufficiently recovered to remember
that she did not like this man.

"Pray have some if you want it," she said coldly.

He turned his back on it abruptly. "No, don't tempt me," he said.
"It's a fast day for me. I'm acquiring virtue, being conspicuously
destitute of all other forms of comfort. Why don't you eat it
yourself? Are you acquiring virtue too?"

He stood looking down at her quizzically, under rapidly flickering
eyelids. She sat silent, wishing with all her heart that he would go
away.

Nothing, however, was apparently further from his thoughts. After a
moment he sat down in the chair that her father had occupied an hour
before. It was very close to her, and she drew herself slightly
away with a small, instinctive movement of repugnance. But Nick was
sublimely impervious to hints.

"I say, you know," he said abruptly, "you shouldn't take opium. Your
donkey of an _ayah_ ought to know better than to let you have it."

Muriel gave a great start. "I don't"--she faltered. "I--I--"

He shook his head at her, as though reproving a child. "Pussy's out,"
he observed. "It is no good giving chase. But really, you know, you
mustn't do it. You used to be a brave girl once, and now your nerves
are all to pieces."

There was a species of paternal reproach in his tone. Looking at him,
she marvelled that she had ever thought him young and headlong. Almost
in spite of herself she began to murmur excuses.

"I can't help it. I must have something.