"Because--" She stopped again. For the first time she had become embarrassed and self-conscious. She made her climax in a rush: "Lately he insists that he has fallen in love with me!"
Laurie uttered an ejaculation. It was not a pretty one, but it nicely fitted the emergency.
"He has hoped that to save myself, and others, I will marry him, the contemptible, crawling snake!"
The listener was impressed by her comparison. Certainly there was something ophidian about Shaw. He himself had noticed it.
"Then, for the time being, you're really safe?" he suggested.
"No. His patience is exhausted. He is beginning to realize that I'd rather die."
"The police can stop all this nonsense." But Laurie spoke without his customary authority.
"Don't imagine that. The police know nothing about this matter, and they never will." A sudden thought struck her and she rose almost with a spring. He rose, too, staring at her in bewilderment. She caught his shoulders and held them tightly, in a grip wholly free from self-consciousness.
"If you warn the police," she said swiftly; "if you draw them into this, you will ruin everything. You will do me a harm that could never be undone. Give me your word that you won't. Please, _please_!"
She was almost shaking him now. Under the clasp of her hands on his shoulders Laurie paled a little, but his black eyes held hers steadily.
"Of course I promise," he said, slowly, "as you make such a point of it."
There was no mistaking the sincerity of this. It was a poignant outcry. Clearly, she was at the breaking-point. He took both her hands.
"This whole experience gives me the oddest feeling," he told her gently. "In one way, I seem to be dreaming it. Under it all there's a conviction that I'm on the track of the mystery; that everything will be cleared up, for us both, in another minute or two. It's merely an instinct. I can't explain it. But one thing I know. Sooner or later--sooner, I hope--I shall be able to work it out for you."
She seemed suddenly to remember that he was holding her hands. Flushing, she gently withdrew them. Then she turned, and with a brusque gesture walked away from him.
"I'm sorry I got you into this!" she cried.
"Don't worry about me." He smiled at her from the door he was holding open. "May I come and take you to lunch to-morrow?"