She managed to get as far as the chest, hopping, for the most part, on one foot. The lid was open. She raised it. Pressing back the velvet cover, she saw that there was room. She thrust in the bag, lowered the lid, and returned to where the major had left her. She would have liked to sink into the chair, only to relieve her foot; something stopped her. She might have been guilty of some crime, her bearing was so strange. She pressed her hand to her side, as if to calm the beating of her heart. She endeavoured to peer into all the shadowy places in the great hall; there were so many places in which, in that light, a spy might be hidden. Suppose she had been seen?
Why was the major so long? She had expressly requested him to be quick; it seemed to her to be a frightful time since he had gone. What could be keeping him? She would have liked to call to him, but she did not dare. Something must be keeping him which perhaps she ought to know. She was suddenly afraid of what the major might have learnt. She would go and see what it was. She hobbled across the hall, ignoring the pain which each movement gave her, bent on being stayed by nothing. She passed into the room through whose door the major had vanished. It was brightly lit. He had switched on the lights, but he was not there. She listened. All was so still. He might be in the room beyond.
She had walked thirty miles with much greater ease than she traversed those less than thirty feet. More than once she had to stop. It needed all her self-control to keep from crying out; she was conscious that beads of perspiration were on her brow, induced either by the effort or the pain. When she came to the door leading to the other room she had to lean against it on one foot, the agony of putting the other to the ground had become so great. She turned the handle and, somehow, went through.
That room was also lighted, the electrics serving to show that it was in a state of singular confusion. The fine old furniture was all anyhow; chairs, tables, ornaments were overturned; scarcely anything seemed in its place. But she had found the major. He was on his knees about the centre of the room, leaning over something which was recumbent on the floor, something by which he was so engrossed that, plainly, her entrance had gone unnoticed. His unconsciousness of her presence affected her unpleasantly.