"We've got to get you out of this, you know," he abruptly announced.
Her eyes, which had brightened at his entrance, grew as somber as his own. Without replying, she turned, walked across the room to the window, and stood looking down into the street.
"Is he there?" she asked at last, and without moving her head.
"Shaw? Great Scott, no! At least I didn't see him. I suppose he takes a few hours off now and then, during the twenty-four; doesn't he?"
"Oh, yes, he comes and goes, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly. I did not see him at all to-day until late this afternoon. Then he took up his post across the street just opposite this window, and stood there for almost an hour."
"What does he expect to gain by that performance?"
"Several things, I suppose. For one, he wants to get on my nerves; and he does," she added somberly, and still without turning.
Laurie made a vague tour around the room and brought up by her side.
"You know," he confessed, "I haven't really taken this thing in yet. Even now, this minute, it doesn't seem possible to me that Shaw could do you any real harm."
She nodded. "I know. Why should it? Even to me it is like a nightmare and I keep hoping to wake up. There are hours, even days, when I convince myself that it isn't real." She stopped. "It must be very hard for any one else to understand," she ended, when he did not speak.
"Nevertheless," admitted Laurie, "I can't forget it. I can't think of anything else."
She took this as naturally as she had taken his first remark.
"It's going to be very hard for you. I was wrong to draw you into it. I am realizing that more and more, every minute."
"You couldn't help yourself," he cheerfully reminded her. "Now that I am in it, as I've warned you before, I intend to run things. It seems to me that the obvious course for you is to move. After you're safely hidden somewhere, I think I can teach Herbert Ransome Shaw a lesson that won't react on you."
"If I moved, how long do you think it would take him to find me?"
"I moved here a few days ago. He appeared exactly forty-eight hours later. If I moved from here it would only mean going through the game of hare and hounds again."
"I've reached the point where I can't endure that any more." For the first time her voice broke. "Can't you imagine what that sort of thing would be? To get up in the morning and wonder if this is the day I'll see him under my window? To go to bed at night and ask myself if he is lurking in the shadows below, or across the street, or perhaps outside my very door? To know that sooner or later he will be there, that his coming is as inevitable as death itself--" She broke off.