that of Captain
Holliday. How on earth did he come into this? Or had he been in it
from the first? Somehow from his tone of frightened tension she
thought he had not, yet she could not imagine what he was doing here
now. Instinctively she knew that the doctor was still studying her
closely, and she felt that if he kept it up much longer she would give
herself away. Already she feared that in some way she had betrayed her
astonishment of a moment ago. Had he noticed anything? She was
ignorant of how to simulate a drugged sleep; she might be doing it all
wrong.

Suddenly, without the least warning, she felt a cruel pinch on her
shoulder. The doctor, to satisfy himself, had resorted to this crude
but effectual method of finding out if she was quite unconscious or
not. At least it might easily have proved effectual, only Providence
intervened. She never knew how it was she did not shriek aloud, but
instead managed to remain perfectly quiescent, unresisting. A second
later she had her reward. She heard the huge man move away, his step
creaking across the bare boards out into the main room. She breathed
again, and listened.

For about two minutes there was silence, then Holliday spoke, bursting
out with a sort of defiance that had terror in it, she thought.

"See here, Sartorius, I'm going to clear out. I've had enough. I
didn't know what I was letting myself in for the other day, or I
wouldn't have helped you out."

"_You'll stay here._"

This bald statement, uttered with peculiar emphasis, caused a shudder
to run through Esther. There was something ominous in it, crushing.
The young man may have thought so too, to judge by the nervous,
uncertain fashion in which he strove to combat the command.

"The hell I shall! Who'll keep me if I want to go?"

There was no response, and after a second Holliday continued
argumentatively:

"You know I've had nothing to do with this business--nothing! It's
true I told Therese, long ago, the things that people said about you in
Algeria. I never knew if they were true or not; I didn't want to know.
It was nothing to me how you got money to live on. You saved my life,
that was enough for me. Good God, the past few days must prove I'm not
ungrateful! Still, there's a limit to everything, and this thing's too
damned risky for me; I don't want anything to do with it."

"Listen to me."

The doctor's voice was level, his words dropping like a heavy weight
across