d into the street and almost immediately into a passing taxicab
which he had hailed from the threshold of the shop. As he closed the
door, he glanced behind him. The woman was standing there, half turned
towards him, still with that strange, stony look upon her lifeless
face. The chemist was bending across the counter towards her, wondering,
perhaps, if another incident were to be drawn into his night's work. The
eau-de-cologne was running in a little stream across the floor.

"Where to, sir?" the taxicab driver asked Tavernake.

"Where to?" Tavernake repeated.

The girl was clinging to his arm.

"Tell him to drive away from here," she whispered, "to drive anywhere,
but away from here."

"Drive straight on," Tavernake directed, "along Fleet Street and up
Holborn. I will give you the address later on."

The man changed his speed and their pace increased. Tavernake sat quite
still, dumfounded by these amazing happenings. The girl by his side was
clutching his arm, sobbing a little hysterically, holding him all the
time as though in terror.

CHAPTER IV. BREAKFAST WITH BEATRICE

The girl, awakened, perhaps, by the passing of some heavy cart along
the street below, or by the touch of the sunbeam which lay across
her pillow, first opened her eyes and then, after a preliminary stare
around, sat up in bed. The events of the previous night slowly shaped
themselves in her mind. She remembered everything up to the commencement
of that drive in the taxicab. Sometime after that she must have fainted.
And now--what had become of her? Where was she?

She looked around her in ever-increasing surprise. Certainly it was the
strangest room she had ever been in. The floor was dusty and innocent
of any carpet; the window was bare and uncurtained. The walls were
unpapered but covered here and there with strange-looking plans, one of
them taking up nearly the whole side of the room--a very rough piece
of work with little dabs of blue paint here and there, and shadings and
diagrams which were absolutely unintelligible. She herself was lying
upon a battered iron bedstead, and she was wearing a very coarse
nightdress. Her own clothes were folded up and lay upon a piece of brown
paper on the floor by the side of the bed. To all appearance, the room
was entirely unfurnished, except that in the middle of it was a hideous
papier mache screen.

After her first bewildered inspection of her surroundings, it was upon
this screen that