And he, too, felt
terror. Who could it be? No one came but Larry, she had said. Who else
then could it be? Again came the knock, louder! He felt the breath of
her whisper on his cheek: "If it is Larry! I must open." He shrank back
against the wall; heard her open the door and say faintly: "Yes. Please!
Who?"
Light painted a thin moving line on the wall opposite, and a voice which
Keith recognised answered:
"All right, miss. Your outer door's open here. You ought to keep it shut
after dark."
God! That policeman! And it had been his own doing, not shutting the
outer door behind him when he came in. He heard her say timidly in her
foreign voice: "Thank you, sir!" the policeman's retreating steps, the
outer door being shut, and felt her close to him again. That something
in her youth and strange prettiness which had touched and kept him
gentle, no longer blunted the edge of his exasperation, now that he
could not see her. They were all the same, these women; could not speak
the truth! And he said brusquely:
"You told me they didn't know you!"
Her voice answered like a sigh:
"I did not think they did, sir. It is so long I was not out in the town,
not since I had Larry.
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