“That’s as it may be,” haughtily said Florrie, with a venomous glance. Elsie felt far too tired to quarrel with the maid, as she had often done before, and when Florrie was actually gone she went upstairs and lay down on her bed. It was nearly three o’clock before a cautious sound from below betrayed the return of the doctor. Elsie rose and automatically glanced at herself in the looking-glass. One side of her face was flushed, her eyes looked small and swollen-lidded, and her hair was disordered. She dabbed powder on her face and pulled her wave of hair further down over her forehead before going downstairs. The doctor was hanging up his hat on the crowded hooks that lined one side of the wall in the tiny entrance lobby. “Coast clear?” Elsie nodded. “Sure?” “Absolutely.” She held out the key of the house door. “I’ve locked up at the back.” “Then I’ll lock up at the front,” said Doctor Woolley, and did so. “My God, we’re in a bloody mess,” he began, turning round and facing Elsie. Desperate, she ran forward and threw herself into his arms, instinctively seeking the only reassurance she knew, that of physical contact. The doctor suddenly buried his face in her hair, then forced her face upwards and kissed her passionately. They clung to one another. At last he released his clasp, only keeping one arm round her waist. “Where can we go? We’ll have to settle something, and Lord knows when I shall get another chance of speaking to you, with that hell-cat on the warpath. I’ve had the deuce and all of a time getting here now, and we must both clear out of the place before she and the kids get back. Put on your hat and coat, old girl, and come along.” “Where to?” “Where I take you,” said the doctor brusquely. When she came down again, he hurried her out of the house, locking the door again behind them, and putting the key under the scraper, where it was always looked for on Sunday. “Taxi!” The doctor hailed a passing taxi and made Elsie get into it. He gave the address of a hotel in a street of which she had never heard. “Where are we going to?” “Somewhere where I can talk to you.” He passed his arm round her again, and she made no pretence of resistance, but lay against him, letting him play with her hand and occasionally bend his head down to kiss her lips. Elsie had slept very little for the past three nights; she had shed tears, and she had been subject to a continual nervous strain. By the time that the taxi stopped she was almost dozing, and it was in a half-dazed state that she followed Dr. Woolley into the dingy hall of a high building and, after a very short parley with a stout man in evening dress, to an upstairs sitting-room. She asked nothing better than to sink on to the narrow couch in a corner of the room and let herself be petted and caressed, but after a time her wearied senses awoke, and told her that the man beside her was becoming restive and excited.