That mask seemed to get thin, to break away now and again, as she drove through the London streets at last, as though the wild emotion which it hid was growing too strong for it. Her breath was coming faster and faster, until her white, parted lips took an involuntary line of physical pain. There were no lights in the house in Chelsea as her cab drew up. It was twelve o’clock. She rang violently, and waited, her rapid breathing almost suffocating her. No one came. She rang again, pausing this time with her hand on the bell; again and again, furiously, as a wild, unreasoning horror seemed to seize upon her and tear at her heart. At last there was a sound as of the tentative undoing of bolts and turning of keys. The door was opened an inch or two, and a frightened woman’s voice said: “Who is it?” A moment later there was no possibility of doubt on that score. The door was hurriedly thrown open, and Mrs. Romayne moved swiftly into the hall, turning fiercely to confront the astonished, partially-dressed servant, whose bedroom candle seemed to be the only light in the house. “Has Mr. Julian gone to bed?” she demanded, and the woman hardly recognised her mistress’s voice. “Mr. Julian is not here, ma’am!” she answered. “He has not been here since the day before yesterday.” CHAPTER XIII “Mr. Falconer, sir! Mr. Falconer!” Dennis Falconer was a light sleeper, and he was awake on the first call, low and hurried as it was. It must be a very bad morning, he said to himself, for the light was not nearly so strong as it usually was when he was called at eight o’clock. “All right!” he called back. But the retreating footsteps that usually ensued upon his answer did not follow. “There’s a lady, sir, to see you, please. She’s waiting in the sitting-room. ‘Mrs. Romayne,’ she told me to say.” “What!” It was a sharp exclamation of inexpressible astonishment, and as he uttered it Falconer sprang out of bed. As he did so he realised that the unusualness of the light was due to the unusualness of the hour--seven o’clock only. “Some one from Mrs. Romayne, you mean?” he called, his strong, deep voice full of incredulity and apprehension. Then, as the answer came through the door, “‘Mrs. Romayne,’ sir, the lady said,” he called back hurriedly: “Say I will be with her in a moment.” Very few moments indeed had passed before Falconer’s bedroom door opened and he came out with a rapid step. He opened his sitting-room door and passed in, shutting the door hastily behind him, and as he did so the words of grave concern with which he had entered died upon his lips.