Without knowing how she had come there, Joan found herself standing
beside the outer doorway, in the narrow hall; one hand hugging about her
the kimono she must have snatched up by instinct, while yet not fully
wakened, the other hand fumbling with the lock; sleep clouding her brain
like a fog, fatigue weighting her eyelids and chaining her limbs, panic
hammering in her bosom.
Overhead the doorbell was ringing imperatively, without interruption,
even as it must have been ringing for many minutes before she was
consciously awake.
Dimly she felt that this alarm by night must portend something strange
and terrible.
And still she held her hand, wondering. Who could it be? Not Quard: for
she had seen him leave New York. Never Marbridge: that were unthinkable!
Hattie Morrison, perhaps.... And that meant....
The bell ground on implacably.
At length she found courage to adjust the chain-bolt and open the door
to the limit permitted by that guard.
In the outer hallway a gas-jet burned, turned low, diffusing just enough
illumination to show her the figure, somehow indefinitely familiar in
spite of its style, of a man in a chauffeur's uniform: a young and wiry
man clothed in khaki coat and breeches and leather leggins, and wearing
a cap with visor shadowing heavily his narrow, sharp-featured
countenance.
As the door opened he removed his finger from the bell-push, and drove
home recognition with his voice.
"Miss Thursby live here? I got a message for her."