Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/238



June had no idea of the time that she lay in a huddle against the railing. But it may not have been so long in fact as it was in experience. Shattered she might be, yet unknown to herself, there was still a reserve of fighting power to draw upon.

Cold iron, moreover, and raw air had a magic of their own. Clear of that mephitic room and the foul presence of Keller, a fine human machine began slowly to renew itself. Except for a faint gleam from the room out of which she had just come, stealing through the fanlight of the door out of which she had been flung, there was not a sign of light upon the staircase. The entire building appeared to be deserted. Its stone-flagged steps were full of echoes as soon as she ventured to move upon them; and when clinging to the railing for support she had painfully descended two she entered a region of total darkness.

It was like going down into a pit. Could she have only been sure that death awaited her below, she might have been tempted to fling herself into it headlong. But she knew that the ground was not far off.

Three or four steps more brought her to the vestibule. At the end of it was a door, open to the street. Outside this door shone a faint lamp, round which weird shadows circled in a ghostly witch-dance. The night beyond was a wall of horrors, which she had lost the will to face.