Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/143

Rh Mrs. Peddars room—for the present, at any rate. I will come to you immediately."

"You will be sure to come?"

She laid her hand upon my arm.

"Certain. I will be there almost as soon as you are." Hume came forward.

"I also wish to speak to you."

"You? No! I don't wish to speak to you—not to you!"

She shrank from him as if he had been some leprous thing. When they had gone he turned to me with eyes in which there was a strange something, whose meaning, just then, I did not attempt to decipher; though I was dimly conscious, as my eyes looked into his, of an odd sensation of wonder as to whether the doctor himself might not be going mad.

"What is it which actuates your moves in this game which you are playing? To save your neck, do you propose to hang her, as well as Philip Lawrence?"

That is what he said to me. To save my neck! The words rang in my ears as I mounted towards the housekeeper's room. They were to me as the germ of an idea.