Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/136

122 "And when was that?"

"After I called for you."

"To leave word for me to go?" The Doctor set his face. "But you were not going home then."

"I did go—I had a reason. You know it," Tony said to Rose.

"When you went for your paper?" She thought. "But Effie wasn't there then."

"Why not? She was there, but Miss Martle wasn't with her."

"Then, in God's name, who was?" cried the Doctor.

"I was," said Tony.

Rose gave the inarticulate cry of a person who has been holding her breath, and the Doctor an equally loud, but more stupefied "You?"

Tony fixed upon Rose a gaze that seemed to count her respirations. "I was with her," he repeated; "and I was with her alone. And what was done—I did." He paused while they both gasped: then he looked at the Doctor. "Now you know." They continued to gasp; his confession was a blinding glare, in the shock of which the Doctor staggered back from Rose and she fell away with a