Suddenly she heard the soft closing of a door. The sound was quite near. She sat up and listened. A faint light, reflected from the sea, came through her cabin scuttles; she could make out the closed doors of her room--the bathroom door behind her, Marie's door in front, and that other which led into the corridor at her right. Her rooms were on the port side of the main deck. But though the upper part of the cabin was faintly illuminated, the deck lay in the deepest shadow.
Madame heard nothing, but straight before her she saw the communicating door between her room and Marie's open half-way and then close. Someone had penetrated her room by way of the bathroom door, crawled past her bed along the deck, and slipped without sound into her maid's cabin.
A gust of fury shook her. She did not seek to enquire whether Marie were a victim or an accomplice. Just as when those cases of liquor had come aboard, she felt the humiliation of outrage. Her room had been made flagrant use of as a surreptitious passage to her maid's; her one passion at that moment was for instant vengeance.
She stretched forth her left hand, and snapped on the electric lights. In her other hand was gripped the loaded automatic.
The lights flashed on, and Marie's door opened wide. On the threshold stood Lord Topsham, clad only in a pair of pyjama trousers. The dark brown skin of his body glowed in the light. He himself paused, momentarily dazzled.
Behind him rang out a shriek followed instantly by a howl from Willie. White arms were wound about his neck. Marie had sprung upon his back, and clung to him shrieking.
Willie staggered into Madame's room, and some hard object, which had been in his hand, fell upon the deck. Madame heard the ring of steel upon wood. Then he raised both hands, and fastened his fingers into the soft upper arms of the girl who had sprung upon him. Those fingers, contracted with the full force of Willie's powerful muscles, bit into Marie's flesh, and she screamed with a pain which was even greater than her terror. The remorseless fingers ground and bit, and the grip of Marie's arms relaxed. Then Willie bent almost to the deck, and with a heave of his loins flung Marie, a whirl of white tangled draperies, against the cabin wall. She brought up with a sickening crunch against the hard steel-backed panelling, and lay insensible along the wainscot.