The bell rang again.

"You'll have to!" Mrs. Brace said at last. "I won't let anybody in. I have to answer it!"

"You'll send them away--whoever it is--at once?"

"At once. I don't want you seen here, any more than you want to be seen!"

Lucille started toward the bedroom. At the first step she took, Mrs.

Brace put a hand on her arm.

"That money!" she demanded, in a low whisper. "I'll take it."

"And do what I asked--stop attacking us?"

"Yes. Yes!"

Lucille gave her the money.

There were no lights in the bedroom. Lucille, for fear of stumbling or making a noise, stood to one side of the door-frame, close to the wall.

Mrs. Brace's footsteps stopped. There was the click of the opening door. Then, there came to Lucille the high-pitched, querulous voice which she had been afraid she would hear.

It was her father's.

XVII

"THE WHOLE TRUTH"

"Mrs. Brace, good evening.--May I come in?"

Then followed the sound of footsteps, and the closing of the door.

"I shan't detain you long, Mrs. Brace." They were still in the hall.

"May I come in?"

"Certainly." The tardy a.s.sent was the perfection of indifference.

They entered the living room. Lucille, without using her eyes, knew that her father was standing just within the doorway, glancing around with his slight squint, working his lips nervously, his head thrust forward.

"Ah-h!" his shrill drawl, although he kept it low, carried back to Lucille. "All alone--may I ask?" He went toward the chairs by the window. "That is, I hope to have--well--rather a confidential little talk with you."

Mrs. Brace resumed her place on the armless rocker after she had moved a chair forward for him. Lucille heard it grate on the floor. Certain that he had taken it, she looked into the room. Her intuition was correct; Mrs. Brace had placed it so that his back was turned to both the bedroom door and the door into the entry. This made her escape possible.

The relief she got from the thought was of a violent nature. It came to her like a blow, almost forcing a gasp from her constricted throat. If she could tiptoe without sound a distance of eighteen feet, a matter of six or seven steps, she could leave the apartment without his knowledge.

To that she was doubly urged. In the first place, Hastings' warning drummed upon her brain; he had specified the importance of keeping even her father in ignorance of her errand.

Upon that came another reason for flight, her fear of hearing what her father would say. A wave of nausea weakened her. She bowed down, there in the dark, under the burden of her suspicion: he had come to do, for quite a different reason, what she had done! She kept away from definite a.n.a.lysis of his motive. Fear for Berne, or fear for himself, it was equally horrible to her consideration.

"I admire your spirit, Mrs. Brace," he was saying, in ingratiating tone; "and your shrewdness. I've followed all you said, in the papers. And I'm in hopes that we may----"

He stopped, and Lucille, judging from the thin edges of sounds that she caught, had a mental picture of his peering over his shoulder. He resumed:

"I must apologize, I'm sure. But you'll realize my concern for secrecy--after I've explained. May I--ah-h-h--do you mind if I look about, for possible hearers?"

"It's unnecessary," came the calm, metallic a.s.surance. "I've no objection to your searching my apartment, if you insist." She laughed, a mirthless deprecation of his timidity, and coolly put herself at his disposal in another sentence: "I've sense enough to form an idea of what you'll propose; and I'd scarcely want others to hear it--would I?"

"Ah-h-h!" he drawled, expressing a grudging disposition to accept her a.s.surance. "Certainly not.--Well, that's very reasonable--and obliging, I'm sure."

Again by the thin fringes of sound, Lucille got information of his settling into his chair.

"Why," he began; "why, in the name of all the unfathomable, inscrutable angels----"

"First, Mr. Sloane," Mrs. Brace interrupted him--and Lucille heard the rattle of a newspaper; "as a preface to our--shall we say conference?--our conference, then, let me read you this summary of my position.--That is, if you care to understand my position thoroughly."

She was far from her habitual quietness, rattling the newspaper incessantly. The noise, Lucille realized, would hang as a curtain between her father's ears and the possible sounds of her progress from the bedroom door to the entry.

Stealing a glance into the living room, she saw his back and, over his stooped shoulders, Mrs. Brace's calm face. In that instant, the newspaper shook more violently--enough, she thought, to signal cooperation.

She sickened again at sight of that woman about to dispense bought favours to her father. The impulse to step forth and proclaim her presence rose strongly within her; but she was turned from it by fear that her interruption might produce disastrous results. After all, she was not certain of his intention.

She knew, however, that at any moment he might insist on satisfying himself, by a tour of inspection, that he was safe from being overheard.

She hesitated no longer. She would try to get away.

"Look at this, Mr. Sloane, if you please," Mrs. Brace was saying; "notice how the items are made to stand out, each in a paragraph of large type."

She held the paper so that Sloane bent forward, and, against his will, was held to joint perusal while she read aloud. The curtain of protecting noise thus was thickened.

"'That Mrs. Brace has knowledge of the following facts,'" the harsh, colourless voice was reading.

Lucille began her escape. She moved with an agony of precaution, taking steps only a few inches long, her arms held out from her sides to avoid unnecessary rustling of her clothing. She went on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, keeping the heels of her shoes always free of the floor, each step a slow torture.

Her breathing stopped--a hysterical contraction of her chest prevented breathing. Her face burned like fire. Her head felt crowded, as if the blood tried to ooze through the confining scalp. There was a great roaring in her ears. The pulse in her temples was like the blows of sledges.

Once, midway of the distance, as she stood lightly balanced, with arms outstretched, something went wrong with her equilibrium. She started forward as she had often done when a child, with the sensation of falling on her face. Her skirt billowed out in front of her. If she had had any breath in her, she would have cried out.

But the automatisms of her body worked better than her overtaxed brain.

Her right foot went out easily and softly--she marvelled at that independent motion of her leg--and, taking up the falling weight of her body, restored her balance.

Mrs. Brace's voice had not faltered, although she must have seen the misstep. Arthur Sloane's bowed shoulders had not stirred. Mrs. Brace continued the printed enumeration of her stores of knowledge.

Lucille took another step. She was safe!--almost. There remained but a yard of her painful progress. One more step, she comforted herself, would put her on the threshold of the entry door, and from there to the corridor door, shielded by the entry wall from possible observation by her father, would be an easy business.

She completed that last step. On the threshold, she had to turn her body through an arc of ninety degrees, unless she backed out of the door.