tell Mira DIRECTLY she returns that she
has no right to leave you alone like this! Now I am going to hurry back
upstairs; so you may appear safely. Don't let the omelette get cold.
Good night!"

"No, certainly I shall not!" cried Leroux. "So good of you--I--er--do
like omelette.... Good night!"

Calmly he returned to his writing-table, where, in the pursuit of the
elusive character whose exploits he was chronicling and who had brought
him fame and wealth, he forgot in the same moment Helen Cumberly and the
omelette.

The table-clock ticked merrily on;
SCRATCH--SCRATCH--SPLUTTER--SCRATCH--went Henry Leroux's pen; for this
up-to-date litterateur, essayist by inclination, creator of "Martin
Zeda, Criminal Scientist" by popular clamor, was yet old-fashioned
enough, and sufficient of an enthusiast, to pen his work, while lesser
men dictated.

So, amidst that classic company, smiling or frowning upon him from the
oaken shelves, where Petronius Arbiter, exquisite, rubbed shoulders
with Balzac, plebeian; where Omar Khayyam leaned confidentially toward
Philostratus; where Mark Twain, standing squarely beside Thomas Carlyle,
glared across the room at George Meredith, Henry Leroux pursued the
amazing career of "Martin Zeda."

It wanted but five minutes to the hour of midnight, when again the door
bell clamored in the silence.

Leroux wrote steadily on. The bell continued to ring, and, furthermore,
the ringer could be heard beating upon the outer door.

"Soames!" cried Leroux irritably, "Soames! Why the hell don't you go to
the door!"

Leroux stood up, dashing his pen upon the table.

"I shall have to sack that damned man!" he cried; "he takes too many
liberties--stopping out until this hour of the night!"

He pulled open the study door, crossed the hallway, and opened the door
beyond.

In, out of the darkness--for the stair lights had been
extinguished--staggered a woman; a woman whose pale face exhibited,
despite the ravages of sorrow or illness, signs of quite unusual beauty.
Her eyes were wide opened, and terror-stricken, the pupils contracted
almost to vanishing point. She wore a magnificent cloak of civet fur
wrapped tightly about her, and, as Leroux opened the door, she tottered
past him into the lobby, glancing back over her shoulder.

With his upraised hands plunged pathetically into the mop of his hair,
Leroux turned and stared at the intruder. She groped as if a darkness
had descended, clutched at the si