"Hadn't you better take me home with you, my dear?"
For a second she stared at him, then, with a hoarse cry, she shook herself free, and with a supreme effort rushed off like a frightened fawn. As she turned into another street she overtook a hansom going at a snail's pace.
"Where to?" asked the man through the roof, after she had got in.
"Straight home as fast as you can," was her strange answer.
The man looked down upon her. "Where's that?" he asked good-humouredly.
"I beg your pardon," she exclaimed, vainly attempting to control her breath. She gave him the address, and off they went.
At the end of the journey she paid him profusely, and he thanked her with as profuse a civility. She let herself in with her key, went up at once to her room, and threw herself across her bed. Her sobs broke out afresh. "Darling," she called; "I want you back again to be mine, and mine only."
Lady Betty did not let go the hand which she had clutched in terror, and her companion responded with a touch of caressing reassurance.
"My heart is still beating," she said, as they turned off the river bank into Tite Street. "Suppose we had crushed that poor creature. What a terrible memory it would have left with us!"
"Happily she wasn't in the least hurt," he replied. "She must have been in a fit of abstraction."
"I caught sight of her face," said Lady Betty; "and I shall not easily forget it. Such a wild, haggard look I have seldom seen. She must have been labouring under some terrible stress of emotion." She gently withdrew her hand, and appeared lost in thought. "I hope, dear," she exclaimed suddenly, "that there is nothing horrible happening."
"No, indeed! The thing has got a little bit on your nerves."
"You did not see her," she insisted. "She came full into the light of our lamp, though it was barely for an instant. My face was turned that way and yours away from hers."
"Naturally she was startled at the moment!" he ventured. He was certain Lady Betty's nervous imagination had deceived her, and that her alarm was groundless.
"It was not a startled look. It was a set look, something like the desperation of a hunted animal. Some man has treated her badly. Darling, you don't think she was going to throw herself into the river?"