"
"Wait, please," the voice answered. "I know why you have been angry
with me. I know why you have kept away from me, why you have been so
cruel! It was because I failed. Was it not, dear Mademoiselle Violet?"
She had not the breath or the courage to answer him. In a moment or
two he continued, and there was a note of suppressed exultation in his
tone.
"Listen! This time--I have not failed!"
She nearly screamed. The receiver in her hand burned like a live
thing. Her eyes were set in a fixed and awful stare as though she were
trying to see for herself outside the walls of the little room where
she stood into the larger chamber from which the voice--that awful
voice--came! Her own words were hysterical and uncertain, but she
managed to falter them out at last.
"What do you mean? Where is Mr. Wingrave? Tell me at once!"
The voice, without being raised, seemed to take to itself a note of
triumph.
"He is dying--on the floor--just here! Listen hard! Perhaps you can
hear him groan! Now will you believe that I am not a coward?"
Her shriek drowned his words. She flung the receiver from her with a
crash and rushed from the room into the hall. She brushed past her
maid with a wild gesture.
"Never mind my wraps. Open the door, Parkins! Is the carriage
waiting?"
"Yes, Milady! Shall--"
But she was past him and down the steps.
"No. 18, Grosvenor Mansions," she cried to the man.
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