The next sound he heard was Carlyon’s voice. Its suddenness pierced him. He had expected at least to have been given warning, and time to brace his knees and heart, if by no more than a knock or the click of a lifting latch.
It penetrated to him through keyhole and crack, kindly and reassuring. “Forgive me,” it said. “I’m completely lost in this fog.”
Countering the deceptive music with its own clear tone, Elizabeth’s voice struck against Carlyon’s like sword against sword. “Why didn’t you knock?” it said.
Had she realised, Andrews wondered, listening intently in the dark, that this was the man he feared. He searched a frightened mind in vain for some way of warning her. He could imagine Carlyon’s apelike face gazing at her with a disarming frankness. “One can’t be too careful around here,” he said. His voice sounded a little nearer as though he had come over to the fire. “You are not alone?” he asked.
Andrews put his hand to his throat. Something had betrayed him. Perhaps as he stood like a blind man in the dark she was giving away his hiding place soundlessly with a wink, a lift of the eyebrow. He had a momentary impulse to fling open the door and rush at Carlyon. It would at least be man against man with no odds, he thought, until the unsleeping inner critic taunted him: “You are not a man.” At least a coward can have cunning, he protested, and kneeling down on the floor, he put his eye to the keyhole. It was a moment before he could find the position of the speakers. Elizabeth was sitting in her chair, hand thrust in the stocking, calmly looking for holes. She is overacting her calmness, he thought fearfully. Carlyon stood over her watching her with an apparent mixture of reverence and regret. He made a small motion towards the two cups, which stood with brazen effrontery upon the table.
She finished her search of the stocking and laid it on her lap. “I am alone,” she said. “My brother has just gone out. He is not far,” she added. “I can easily call to him, if you don’t go.”
Carlyon smiled. “You must not be afraid of me,” he said. “Perhaps I know your brother. Is he a little over the middle height, slightly built, dark, with frightened obstinate eyes?”
“That’s not my brother,” Elizabeth said. “He is short and squat—and very strong.”
“Then I am not looking for your brother.” He picked up one of the cups. “He must have been here very lately,” he said. “The tea is hot. And he left in a hurry with his tea unfinished. Curious that we did not meet.” He gazed round the room with no attempt to hide his curiosity.
“That is my cup you have,” Elizabeth said. “Will you allow me to finish it?”
Andrews kneeling by the keyhole put up his hand to ease his collar as Elizabeth’s lips touched the cup and drained what he had left. A strange loving cup, he thought bitterly, but his bitterness vanished before a wave of humility which for one moment even cleared his mind of its consciousness of fear. He had been kneeling to gain a view of the room beyond, but now in heart he knelt to her. She is a saint, he thought. The charity and courage with which she hid him from his enemy he had taken for granted; but to his muddled unstraight mind the act of drinking from the same cup came with a surprising nobility. It touched him where he was most open to impression; it struck straight at his own awareness of cowardice. Kneeling in the dark not only of the room but of his spirit he imagined that with unhesitating intimacy she had touched his lips and defiled her own.
“I didn’t meet your brother,” Carlyon repeated, still with a touch of regretful tenderness.
“There is another door,” she said without hesitation. Carlyon turned, and to Andrews watching through the keyhole their eyes seemed to meet. His humility and trust vanished as quickly as they had arisen. Carlyon made a step towards the door. She’s betrayed me, Andrews thought, and with fumbling panic-stricken fingers he sought for his knife. Yet he did not dare to open it, even when he had found it, lest the click should make itself heard through the closed door. Carlyon seemed to be staring straight at him. It was incredible that he could not see the eye which watched him through the keyhole, yet he hesitated, nonplussed perhaps as Andrews had been by the girl’s courage, thinking she must have help somewhere, that there must be a trap laid. Then she spoke again carelessly and without hurry, leaning forward to warm her hands at the fire. “It’s no use going there,” she said. “He locked the door as he went out.”
For the man in the dark there was a moment of suspense, while Carlyon hesitated. He had only to try the door for all to be discovered. Finally, he refrained. In part perhaps it was because he feared a trap, but his chief reason must have been that embarrassing streak of chivalry which would not allow him to show openly his doubt of a woman’s word. He turned away and stood in the middle of the room in almost pathetic perplexity. If he had known beforehand that there was a woman to be dealt with, he would have sent one of his companions to the
