octor or
your aunt will say, sir!"

"Look here, Chalmers, you're not going to mention this to anyone, do
you hear? I'm absolutely all right; I know what I'm about. Just you
get me that taxi and be quick about it."

Five minutes later he slipped quietly out of the house and with a
whirling head fell into the waiting taxi. He might or might not be
doing a foolish thing, but no matter what happened he intended to scour
Cannes in search of Esther.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Out of what seemed a long dark night, filled with shapeless images,
Esther woke at last. She believed herself in her comfortable bed at
the Villa Firenze, and for a brief moment she wondered at the hardness
of the mattress beneath her. Next she was aware that her head throbbed
dully and that her mouth felt dry and harsh. She swallowed several
times. Was she ill? Had anything happened? Then followed the
discovery that she was fully dressed, even to her coat and shoes. How
could that be? It was vaguely disquieting.

She opened her eyes wider and let them roam slowly around. The light
was failing; it was almost dusk. She saw on one side of her, close, a
bare, blank wall, on the other a wide opening, more than a doorway,
hung at the sides with heavy, dusty curtains of a dingy red material.
The curtains looked familiar. Where had she seen them before? She lay
perfectly motionless, pondering the matter idly, not deeply interested.
All at once it came to her: they were the portieres of the doctor's
laboratory; she was in the alcove of the room; this bed that felt so
hard and unyielding was Sartorius's bed....

Instantly memory flooded back upon her in a vast wave. She sat up,
sick with terror, and clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from
screaming aloud. Her hand itself trembled, her whole body shook as
though with ague, but she made no sound. Instead she leaned against
the wall for support and with her heart beating like a trip-hammer
continued to stare about her, listening acutely. All around was dead
stillness; she could hear nothing except the steady drip-drip of water
from a leaky tap. The room was empty but for herself, perhaps there
was no one in the whole house. Beside her was an old bedside table
with two or three dusty paper-bound books on it. Through the curtains
she could just see the end of the long work-table and one of the
cupboards.

The time puzzled her. It had just been getting dark when she last
remembered any