e was in time. He was at the door before she reached it in her blind
course. She did not recognize him; perhaps she did not see him. He
caught her by the arm as she ran past and, very sensibly, without trying
to check her, simply darted in with her and up the stairs, causing no end
of consternation amongst the people in his way. They scattered. What
might have been their thoughts at the spectacle of a shameless middle-
aged man abducting headlong into the upper regions of a respectable hotel
a terrified young girl obviously under age, I don't know. And Fyne (he
told me so) did not care for what people might think. All he wanted was
to reach his wife before the girl collapsed. For a time she ran with him
but at the last flight of stairs he had to seize and half drag, half
carry her to his wife. Mrs. Fyne waited at the door with her quite
unmoved physiognomy and her readiness to confront any sort of
responsibility, which already characterized her, long before she became a
ruthless theorist. Relieved, his mission accomplished, Fyne closed
hastily the door of the sitting-room.

But before long both Fynes became frightened. After a period of
immobility in the arms of Mrs. Fyne, the girl, who had not said a word,
tore herself out from that slightly rigid embrace. She struggled dumbly
between them, they did not know why, soundless and ghastly, till she sank
exhausted on a couch. Luckily the children were out with the two nurses.
The hotel housemaid helped Mrs. Fyne to put Flora de Barral to bed. She
was as if gone speechless and insane. She lay on her back, her face
white like a piece of paper, her dark eyes staring at the ceiling, her
awful immobility broken by sudden shivering fits with a loud chattering
of teeth in the shadowy silence of the room, the blinds pulled down, Mrs.
Fyne sitting by patiently, her arms folded, yet inwardly moved by the
riddle of that distress of which she could not guess the word, and saying
to herself: "That child is too emotional--much too emotional to be ever
really sound!" As if anyone not made of stone could be perfectly sound
in this world. And then how sound? In what sense--to resist what? Force
or corruption? And even in the best armour of steel there are joints a
treacherous stroke can always find if chance gives the opportunity.

General considerations never had the power to trouble Mrs. Fyne much. The
girl not being in a state to be questioned she waited by the bedsid