Page:The Avenger.djvu/309

 "If he don't, let me tell him," she interrupted. "To the nearest police station! That's where I'm off."

Wrayson glanced quickly at the Colonel, who seemed in no way discomposed.

"Naturally," he assented. "No one, my dear young lady, will interfere with you in your desire to carry out your painfully imperfect sense of justice. Pray pass out!"

She hesitated for a moment. Her poor little brain was struggling, perhaps, for the last time, to adapt itself to his point of view—to understand why, at a moment so critical, he should treat her with the easy composure and tolerant good-nature of one who gives to a spoilt child its own way. Then she saw signs of further interference on Wrayson's part, and she delayed no longer.

The Colonel closed the door after her, and stood for a moment with his back against it, for Wrayson had shown signs of a desire to follow the woman whose egress he had just permitted. He looked into their faces, white with horror—full of dread of what was to come, and he smiled reassuringly.

"Amy," he said, turning to the Baroness, "surely you and Wrayson here are possessed of some grains of common sense. Louise, I know, is too easily swayed by sentiment. But you, Wrayson! Surely I can rely on you!"

"For anything," Wrayson answered, with trembling lips. "But what can I do? What is there to be done?"

The Colonel smiled gently.

"Simply to listen intelligently—sympathetically if you can," he declared. "I want to make my position clear to you if I can. You heard what that poor young