"Is it so very late?" she whispered, coming just a little closer, so that she was indeed almost within the shelter of his arms.
He clutched her hands almost roughly and raised them to his lips.
"Much too late for me to stay here, child," he said, and his voice even to himself sounded hard and unnatural.
"Run along to bed. To-morrow night--to-morrow night, then, I will fetch you. Good-bye!"
He let himself out. He did not even look behind to the spot where he had left her. He closed the front door and walked with swift, almost savage footsteps down the quiet Street, across the Square, and into New Oxford Street. Here he seemed to breathe more freely. He called a hansom and drove to his rooms.
The hall-porter had left his post in the front hall, and there was no one to inform Laverick that a visitor was awaiting him. When he entered his sitting-room, however, he gave a little start of surprise. Mr. James Shepherd was reclining in his easy-chair with his hands upon his knees--Mr. James Shepherd with his face more pasty even than usual, his eyes a trifle greener, his whole demeanor one of unconcealed and unaffected terror.
"Hullo!" Laverick exclaimed. "What the dickens--what do you want here, Shepherd?"
"Upon my word, sir, I'm not sure that I know," the man replied, "but I'm scared. I've brought you back the certificates of them shares. I want you to keep them for me. I'm terrified lest they come and search my room. I am, I tell you fair. I'm terrified to order a pint of beer for myself. They're watching me all the time."
"Who are?" Laverick demanded.
"Lord knows who;" Shepherd answered, "but there's two of them at it. I told you about them as asked questions, and I thought there we'd done and finished with it. Not a bit of it! There was another one there this afternoon, said he was a journalist, making sketches of the passage and asking me no end of questions. He wasn't no journalist, I'll swear to that. I asked him about his paper. 'Half-a-dozen,' he declared. 'They're all glad to have what I send them.' Journalist! Lord knows who the other chap was and what he was asking questions for, but this one was a 'tec, straight. Joe Forman, he was in to-day looking after my place, for I'd given a month's notice, and he says to me, 'You see that big chap?'--meaning him as had been asking me the questions--and I says 'Yes!' and he says, 'That's a 'tee. I've seed him in a police court, giving evidence.' I went all of a shiver so that you could have knocked me down."