ition of the fact that she was making a fool of herself, and
finally a semi-darkness through which familiar faces loomed up and
were quickly lost again. There was the soft, musical voice of Lou Chada
reassuring her, a sense of chill, of helplessness, and then for a while
an interval which afterward she found herself unable to bridge.

Knowledge of verity came at last, and Lady Pat raised herself from the
divan upon which she had been lying, and, her slender hands clutching
the cushions, stared about her with eyes which ever grew wider.

She was in a long, rather lofty room, which was lighted by three silver
lanterns swung from the ceiling. The place, without containing much
furniture, was a riot of garish, barbaric colour. There were deep divans
cushioned in amber and blood-red. Upon the floor lay Persian carpets
and skins of beasts. Cunning niches there were, half concealing and half
revealing long-necked Chinese jars; and odd little carven tables bore
strangely fashioned vessels of silver. There was a cabinet of ebony
inlaid with jade, there were black tapestries figured with dragons of
green and gold. Curtains she saw of peacock-blue; and in a tall, narrow
recess, dominating the room, squatted a great golden Buddha.

The atmosphere was laden with a strange perfume.

But, above all, this room was silent, most oppressively silent.

Lady Pat started to her feet. The whole perfumed place seemed to be
swimming around her. Reclosing her eyes, she fought down her weakness.
The truth, the truth respecting Lou Chada and herself, had uprisen
starkly before her. By her own folly--and she could find no
tiny excuse--she had placed herself in the power of a man whom,
instinctively, deep within her soul, she had always known to be utterly
unscrupulous.

How cleverly he had concealed the wild animal which dwelt beneath
that suave, polished exterior! Yet how ill he had concealed it! For
intuitively she had always recognized its presence, but had deliberately
closed her eyes, finding a joy in the secret knowledge of danger. Now at
last he had discarded pretense.

The cigarette which he had offered her at the club had been drugged. She
was in Limehouse, at the mercy of a man in whose veins ran the blood of
ancestors to whom women had been chattels. Too well she recognized that
his passion must have driven him insane, as he must know at what cost
he took such liberties with one who could not lightly be so treated. But
these refle