Valgrand made frantic efforts to prevent himself from falling.
"What does this mean? Let me go! What right----"
The two men began to drag him gently away.
"Come along," said one of them in his ear. "Time's up. Don't be obstinate."
"Besides, you know it's quite useless to resist, Gurn," the other added, not unkindly. "Nothing in the world could----"
"I don't understand," Valgrand protested feebly. "Who are you? And why do you call me Gurn?"
"Let me finish," growled one of the men irritably. "You know we are running an awful risk in getting you out of the prison and bringing you here when you are supposed to be with the chaplain; you swore you would behave squarely with us and go back when you were told. Now you've got to keep your promise."
"The lady paid us well to give you an hour with her," the other man put in, "but you've had more than an hour and a half, and we've got our characters and our situations to look after. So now, come along, Gurn, and don't let us have any nonsense."
Valgrand, fighting hard against his overpowering sleepiness, began to have some vague comprehension of what was happening. He recognised the uniforms, and guessed that the men were prison warders.
"Good God!" he exclaimed thickly, "the fools think I am Gurn! But I am not Gurn! Ask----" He cast a despairing eye at Lady Beltham who throughout the awful scene remained on her knees in a corner of the room, dumb with anguish, apparently deaf and turned to stone. "Tell them, madame," he implored her. "Oh, God save me!" but still the warders dragged him towards the door. By an herculean effort he swayed them back with him into the middle of the room. "I am not Gurn, I tell you," he shouted. "I am Valgrand, Valgrand the actor. Everybody in the world knows me. You know it too, but---- Search me, I tell you," and he made a sign with his head towards his left side. "Look in my pocket-book; my name's inside; and you'll find a letter too; proof of the trap I've been led into: the letter from that woman over there!"
"Better look and see, Nibet," one warder said to the other, and to Valgrand he added: "Not so much noise, man! Do you mean to get us all caught?"
Nibet passed a quick hand through Valgrand's pockets; there was no note-book there. He shrugged his shoulders.