True, she had stopped, on a lower floor, to inquire for Teverson; but that proved nothing in her favor. I thought how I’d trusted her before and how I’d been hit on the back of the head when I went to that meeting place where I was to have my chance to argue with her, alone. I held to her; and she gazed at me and I felt her breathing slowly and deeply. The little clock on the desk near us turned to eleven; and we both heard steps and talk in the hall. “What are they doing?” she asked me. I opened our door; and we both saw two men, whose figures looked like Weston and Reed. They had hooded affairs, of gas-mask pattern over their heads, and they were at the door of the directors’ room. “Don’t go in!” Doris cried to them. “No mask’s any good! Don’t let them in!” she cried to me. Apparently they did not hear and Doris jerked toward them. I held her and shoved her back of me. “Don’t go in, Reed!” I called and at that moment, though I did not know it, I must have let Doris go. I was watching the men and calling to them again; they had the door open a little; now they dropped back, but they could look in. “They’re dead,” said Reed’s voice. “Sure,” said the other. Then I missed Doris; and when I saw her, she was at the top of the stairs where she had first appeared. She had the door open and she was standing in it, looking back; then she slammed it. I was after her, but she had too good a lead. On the third floor, she entered the Sencort offices and left me on the back stairs with a bolted door between us. I beat upon it and shouted and then realized, too late, that my best chance was to go to the ground and head her off. Of course I never headed her; she was gone. When I returned upstairs, Reed had ventilated the directors’ room by opening the windows from the outside ledge. He had taken out the four guinea pigs he had left penned on the top of the directors’ table. They were all dead without visible hurt or reason. Teverson came out of his conference, which was being held on the third floor; and he turned the limp guinea pigs over thoughtfully. “There’s only one reason those aren’t Strathon and Géroud and Sencort and me, Fanneal,” he said, looking at me. “You want to do one more big thing for us and against--them?” He moved his head toward the wall; I knew whom he meant. “What’s that?” I asked. “Keep this all quiet. It’s asking something, I know.” I guess I got red at that. He meant I’d played rather prominently as a goat and it was something to ask me to conceal the one thing I’d put through. “It’s the only thing to do,” I agreed. He gave me his hand again. “We’ll all know,” he said. “How about the men you have tracing the pipes?” I asked. “Nothing from them yet.”