"Simply because the man is mad," I said.
His bright eyes narrowed to glittering slits.
"You quote gossip of the newspapers," he replied.
"Do I? I happen to know more than the newspapers do."
He rose to his feet, took two steps towards me, and looked down with a
twitching face.
"Who _are_ you?" he said, and his whole frail frame trembled.
I caught him firmly by the arm and stared into his face--God knows what
my own was like.
"I am the one who has been waiting, the one who is waiting, to help--the
one who has come to save," I said, and my voice was not my own--it was
as if the words were put into my mouth by an outside power.
He wrenched his arm away, gave a little cry, strode to the mantelpiece
and bent his head upon his arms. His whole body was shaken with
convulsive sobs.
I stood in the middle of the room watching him, hardly daring to
breathe, feeling that my heart was swelling until it occupied the whole
of my body.
At length he looked up.
"Then I shall be of some use to Her after all," he said. "This is too
much honor. The Lily of White Jade--"
He staggered back, his face working terribly, and fell in a huddled heap
upon the floor. I was just opening my mouth to call for Rolston when
there came a thunderous knocking upon the side door of the house.
I ran into the dimly lit passage and as I did so Rolston flitted out of
the bar door and stood beside me.
"I have heard everything," he whispered, "but what, what is this?"
He pointed to the door, and as he did so there was again the thunder of
the knocker and the whirr of the electric bell.
Hardly knowing what I did I shot back the bolts at top and bottom,
turned the heavy key in its lock and opened the door.
Outside in the moonlight a figure was standing, a man in a heavy fur
coat, carrying a suitcase in his left hand.
"What the devil--" I was beginning, when he pushed past me and came into
the hall.
Then I saw, with a leap of all my pulses, that it was Lord Arthur
Winstanley.