Forgive me. I oughtn't to have done it, even for a
minute. Here is the letter-case which the Foreign--which was given to me
to bring to you."
"Wait!" she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had
never departed. "Wait! It will he better to lock the door." But even as
she spoke, there came a knock, loud and insistent. With a spring, she
flung herself on me, her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped
suggestively a moment ago. I let her draw out the long case which I had
been guarding--the case I had not once touched since leaving London,
except to feel anxiously for its outline through my buttoned coat. At
least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in her own hands
now.
Neither of us spoke nor made a sound during the instant that she clung
to me, the faint, well-remembered perfume of her hair, her dress, in my
nostrils. But as she started away, and I knew that she had the
letter-case, the knock came again. Then, before I could be sure whether
she wished for time to hide, or whether she would have me cry "come in,"
without seeming to hesitate, the door opened. For a second or two Maxine
and I, and a group of figures at the door were mere shadows in the ever
deepening pink dusk: but I could scarcely have counted ten before the
long expected light sprang up.
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