"Valerie," I cried, "what has happened? Are you worse that you look at me like that?"
"Hush!" she whispered, "do not speak so loud. Can not you see that Pharos is coming?"
Her beautiful eyes were open to their widest extent, and there was an air about her that spoke of an impending tragedy.
"Pharos is coming," she said again, this time very slowly and deliberately. "It is too late for us to escape. He is driving down the street."
There was a long pause, during which I felt as if I were being slowly turned to stone.
"He is here." And as she spoke the handle of the door was turned.
As the person, whoever he might be, entered, Valerie uttered a little cry and fell senseless into my arms. I held her tightly and then wheeled round to see who the intruder might be.
For more than a minute neither of us moved. Valerie lay in my arms just as she had fallen, Pharos stood a foot or so inside the door, while I stood looking first at her and then at him without being able to utter a word. As far as my own feelings were concerned the end of the world had come, for I had made up my mind that Valerie was dying. If that were so, Pharos might do his worst.
"My friends, it would seem as if I have come only just in time," he said with sarcastic sweetness. "My dear Forrester, I must offer you my congratulations upon the neat manner in which you effected your escape. Unfortunately I was aware of it all along. Knowing what was in your heart, I laid my plans accordingly, and here I am. And pray, may I ask, what good have you done yourself by your impetuosity? You chase across Europe at express speed, hoping to get to England before I can catch you, only to find on arrival here that the plague has headed you off, and that it is impossible for you to reach your destination."
"Are you going to stand talking all day?" I said, forgetting caution and the need that existed for humouring him, everything in fact, in my anxiety. "Can not you see that she is ill? Good heavens, man, she may be dying!"
"What do you mean?" he asked quickly, with a change of voice as he crossed the room and came over to where I was standing. "Let me see her instantly!"
With a deftness, and at the same time a tenderness I had never noticed in him before, he took her from me and placed her upon a sofa. Having done so, he stooped over her and commenced his examination. Thirty seconds had not elapsed before he turned fiercely on me again.