No sooner had she spoken the last words than she regretted them. If Leo did get in they took away all excuse. She might have pretended he had been let in. He would have had to back her up. It would have been mean of her, of course. Still, seeing her husband there, Leo would have understood, would have forgiven her. Women are always forgiven such subterfuges in unfortunate moments. What a fool she was to-night!

"That don't matter," said her husband, shortly.

"But--but it does. You know how many burglaries there are. Why, only the other night Mrs. Arthur came home from a ball and met two men on the stairs."

"I pity any men I found on my stairs," he returned composedly, touching the muscle of his left arm with his right hand.

He chuckled.

"They'd be sorry for themselves, I'll bet," he added.

He put down his cigarette and took out another slowly, leisurely. Lady Holme longed to strike him. His conceited composure added fuel to the flame of her anxiety.

"Well, anyhow, I don't care to run these risks in a place like London, Fritz," she said almost angrily. "Have you locked up or not?"

"Damned if I remember," he drawled.

She did not know whether he was deliberately trying to irritate her or whether he really had forgotten, but she felt it impossible to remain any longer in uncertainty.

"Very well, then, I shall go down and see," she said.

And she laid the book of poems on a table and prepared to get up from the sofa.

"Rot!" said Lord Holme; "if you're nervous, I'll go."

She leaned back.

"Very well."

"In a minute."

He struck a match and let it out.

"Do go now, there's a good dog," she said coaxingly.

He struck another match and held it head downwards.

"You needn't hurry a feller."

He tapped his cigarette gently on his knee, and applied the flame to it.

"That's better."

Lady Holme moved violently on the sofa. She had a pricking sensation all over her body, and her face felt suddenly very hot, as if she had fever.

A ridiculous, but painful idea started up suddenly in her mind. Could Fritz suspect anything? Was he playing with her? She dismissed it at once as the distorted child of a guilty conscience. Fritz was not that sort of man. He might be a brute sometimes, but he was never a subtle brute. He blew two thin lines of smoke out through his nostrils, now with a sort of sensuous, almost languid, deliberation, and watched them fade away in the brilliantly-lit room. Lady Holme resolved to adopt another manner, more in accord with her condition of tense nervousness.

"When I ask you to do a thing, Fritz, you might have the decency to do it," she said sharply. "You're forgetting what's due to me--to any woman."

"Don't fuss at this time of night."

"I want to go to bed, but I'm not going till I know the house is properly shut up. Please go at once and see."

"I never knew you were such a coward," he rejoined without stirring.

"Who was at the opera?"

"I won't talk to you till you do what I ask."

"That's a staggerin' blow."

She sprang up with an exclamation of anger. Her nerves were on edge and she felt inclined to scream out.

"I never thought you could be so--such a cad to a woman, Fritz," she said.

She moved towards the door. As she did so she heard a cab in the square outside, a rattle of wheels, then silence. It had stopped. Her heart seemed to stand still too. She knew now that she was a coward, though not in the way Fritz meant. She was a coward with regard to him.

Her jealousy had prompted her to do a mad thing. In doing it she had actually meant to produce a violent scene. It had seemed to her that such a scene would relieve the tension of her nerves, of her heart, would clear the air. But now that the scene seemed imminent--if Fritz had forgotten, and she was certain he had forgotten, to lock the door--she felt heart and nerves were failing her. She felt that she had risked too much, far too much. With almost incredible swiftness she remembered her imprudence in speaking to Carey at Arkell House and how it had only served to put a weapon into her husband's hand, a weapon he had not scrupled to use in his selfish way to further his own pleasure and her distress. That stupid failure had not sufficiently warned her, and now she was on the edge of some greater disaster. She was positive that Leo Ulford was in the cab which had just stopped, and it was too late now to prevent him from entering the house. Lord Holme had got up from his chair and stood facing her. He looked quite pleasant. She thought of the change that would come into his face in a moment and turned cold.

"Don't cut up so deuced rough," he said; "I'll go and lock up."

So he had forgotten. He took a step towards the drawing-room door.

But now she felt that at all costs she must prevent him from going downstairs, must gain a moment somehow. Suddenly she swayed slightly.

"I feel--awfully faint," she said.

She went feebly, but quickly, to the window which looked on to the Square, drew away the curtain, opened the window and leaned out. The cab had stopped before their door, and she saw Leo Ulford standing on the pavement with his back to the house. He was feeling in his pocket, evidently for some money to give to the cabman. If she could only attract his attention somehow and send him away! She glanced back. Fritz was coming towards her with a look of surprise on his face.

"Leave me alone," she said unevenly. "I only want some air."

"But--"

"Leave me--oh, do leave me alone!"

He stopped, but stood staring at her in blank amazement. She dared not do anything. Leo Ulford stretched out his arm towards the cabman, who bent down from his perch. He took the money, looked at it, then bent down again, showing it to Leo and muttering something. Doubtless he was saying that it was not enough. She turned round again sharply to Fritz.

"Fritz," she said, "be a good dog. Go upstairs to my room and fetch me some eau de Cologne, will you?"

"But--"

"It's on my dressing-table--the gold bottle on the right. You know. I feel so bad. I'll stay here. The air will bring me round perhaps."

She caught hold of the curtain, like a person on the point of swooning.

"All right," he said, and he went out of the room.

She watched till he was gone, then darted to the window and leaned out.

She was too late. The cab was driving off and Leo was gone. He must have entered the house.