He, too, was thinking I was out of my mind. The receiver dropped from my hand. "They cannot understand," I said. I told Mrs. Harborough that she must go to Bettina, and I would bring the police. Some objection was made. I did not stop to hear it: "I cannot wait for any words! And I will not wait another second for any human soul!" Then, running beside me as I made for the front door, the old butler spoke again: "----a policeman in our square." He would call the policeman in. The old man was right. A policeman stood at the corner, watching that no harm should come to the ladies of Lowndes Square. I had run out, with the butler protesting at my heels: "_Not in the street_, miss!" he said, with the first hint of emotion I had found in him. I did not wait; but he must have brought the policeman in during my outpouring, for the look of the hall during those swift seconds is stamped on my brain. The elderly maid kneeling at her mistress's feet, changing her shoes; the policeman facing my aunt, helmet in hand, his reverent eye falling before the dignity of Mrs. Harborough, while I, at his elbow, poured out broken sentences, interlarded with: "I'll tell you the rest as we go----" My strained voice was grown weak. I wondered, suddenly, if it had ever really reached their ears. I was like a person down under the sea, trying to make my voice heard through a mile of murky water. I was like a woman buried alive, who, in the black middle of the night, beats at her coffin-lid in some deserted graveyard. "It is no use!" I cried. "I shall go back alone." At last we were all going out of the door. The policeman put on his helmet. "And where is this house?" he asked. "It is--it is----" A pit of blackness opened. I felt myself falling headlong. I heard a cry that made my flesh writhe--as though the cry had been Bettina's, and not mine. A voice said: "It is not possible you have forgotten the address!" I had never known it! CHAPTER XXX THE BLUNT LEAD-PENCIL It must have been half an hour before reason came back. A strange man was there, lean and grey. A friend, I heard--a Healer. All those old, old faces! What had they done? What could they do?--except telephone again to the police the vague and non-committal fact of a girl decoyed and lost to sight in the labyrinth of London. They dared to think they could get me to bed. They found me, not a girl--more a wild animal! Out, out I must go. The outward struggle was matched by the one in my mind. Where should I go? To whom? There must be somebody who would care. Somebody who had Power to give effect to caring. Wildly my ignorance cast about. Who had Power? The King--yes; and surely the Queen would "care." But who was I to reach the Queen? Her sentinels and servants would thrust me out. All my crying would never reach the Queen. Then, the only thing that was left was for me to go out and cry the horror in the street.