Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/198

 in some way suggestive of Sargent's painting of the prophet "Hosea."

"Then shall I come in?" he quietly inquired.

"Yes," she said with an abstraction which implied her mind was occupied by other and more troubling things.

Kestner, as he stepped into the room, swept the place with one of his quick and comprehensive glances. Through a door opening into a small bedroom he caught sight of a partly packed trunk. On the bed beside it was a disordered tumble of clothing, the litter of wrapping paper about it implying that much of that apparel was newly bought. These quickly comprehended details gave to the place a spirit of transiency. They made it plain to the newcomer that he had interrupted Maura Lambert in some sudden movement towards flight. And again, as he stared into her face, his earlier suspicions as to the possibility of a trap returned to him.

Yet he was very much at his ease, face to face with this old-time enemy of his, and in no way afraid of her. The one thought that troubled him was the contingency that she might not be alone, that behind one of those menacing doors might be a confederate, that close at hand was some coarser-fibred colleague who was using her for his own ends. But the persistent voice of some feeling which he could not quite decipher kept telling him that this was not the case. He wanted to believe in her.

"Won't you sit down?" she said, quietly motioning him towards a chair.

"Thank you," he answered, as formally as though