She kept silence for several moments. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly, and a brilliant spot of colour was burning in her cheeks. Her head was thrown a little back, she was regarding him with an intentness which he found almost disconcerting. He had an uncomfortable sense that he was in the presence of a human being who, if it had lain in her power, would have killed him where he stood. Further, he was realizing that the woman whom at first glance he had pronounced beautiful, was absolutely the first of her sex whom he had ever seen who satisfied completely the demands of a somewhat critical and highly cultivated taste. The silence between them seemed extended over a time crowded and rich with sensations. He found time to marvel at the delicate whiteness of her bosom, gleaming like polished ivory under the network of her black gown, to appreciate with a quick throb of delight the slim roundness of her perfect figure, the wonderful poise of her head, the soft richness of her braided hair. Every detail of feature and of toilet seemed to satisfy to the last degree each critical faculty of which he was possessed. He felt a little shiver of apprehension when he recalled the cold brutality of the words which had just left his lips! Yet how could he deal with her differently? "Is this man--Morris Barnes--your friend?" she asked, breaking a silence which had done more than anything else to unnerve him. "No!" he answered. "I scarcely know the man. I have never seen him except in the lift, or on the stairs." "Then you have no excuse for keeping me here," she declared. "I may be his friend, or I may be his enemy. At least I possess the key of his flat, presumably with his permission. My presence here I have explained. I can assure you that it is entirely accidental! You have no right to detain me for a moment." The clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight. A sudden passion surged in his veins, a passion which, although at the time he could not have classified it, was assuredly a passion of jealousy! He remembered the man Barnes, whom he hated. "You shall not go to his rooms--at this hour!" he exclaimed. "You don't know the man! If you were seen--" She laughed mockingly. "Let me pass!" she insisted. He hesitated. She saw very clearly that she was conquering. A moment before she had respected this man. After all, though, he was like the others. "I will go with you and wait outside," he said doggedly. "Barnes, at this hour--is not always sober!" Her lips curled. "Be wise," she said, "and let me go. I do not need your protection or--" She broke off suddenly. The interruption was certainly startling enough. From a table only a few feet off came the shrill tinkle of a telephone bell. Wrayson mechanically stepped backwards and took the receiver into his hand. "Who is it?" he asked. The voice which answered him was faint but clear. It seemed to Wrayson to come from a long way off.