Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/226

 Beaulieu and that she was about to repeat the episode of long ago. If Edward could have trusted this instinct he would not have opened his door. But he could not trust it—not absolutely. It was just barely possible that Madame Beaulieu was in her right mind and really needed his help. It was possible that Beaulieu, who was fat and middle-aged, had had a stroke. It was possible that the house had caught fire. It was possible that thieves had made an entry. Incredible things were possible. All this flashed through his mind as he rushed to the door, fumbled a moment with the bolt and pulled it open.

Madame Beaulieu pitched forward into the room and Edward caught her as she was falling. If he had been carefully rehearsed he could not better have seconded her will to make trouble. She clung to him and when she began to call him her lover and to count aloud upon his protection he knew without looking that Beaulieu himself had arrived upon the scene.

A lowered gas-jet which burned all night in the upper corridor of the house, and touches of the moon, lighted their faces.

Beaulieu's face was a violent red and a network of swollen veins made him look really terrible. He was so angry that at first he could not articulate.