"You don't know? And yet you live here?" Kenwick felt as though his brain were turning over in his head.

"If you call this living." He wouldn't have caught this reply at all if his ear hadn't been pressed close against the panel.

"Are you all alone here?"

There was no reply.

"Is any one with you?"

"Oh, please go away. Do have pity on me and go away."

She was alone, Kenwick decided, and was afraid to tell him so. The realization brought a wave of hot color to his face. He dragged himself painfully back to the landing. And from that distance he sent his voice up to her, freighted with reassurance.

"Don't be frightened. I'm pretty badly bunged up just now, but I found a revolver over in the other wing, and if anybody comes prowling about—well, I'm not a bad shot." Suddenly a new thought occurred to him. "Have you had anything to eat this morning? Are you hungry?"

"I think—I am starving."

It was like a spray of ice-water in his face. He stood for a moment considering, "I'll get you something," he promised. "If you don't want to come out I'll fix it and bring it up on a tray."

"There would be no use."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't open the door."

"Are you in bed?" His voice had sharpened.

Silence again, from which he concluded that she was. He stood there staring at the heavy mahogany door as though by the mere intensity of his gaze he could dissolve it. For a long moment he was lost in thought, but he was not trying now to solve the riddle of the woman on the other side of the barrier. The needs of the immediate present were all that concerned him. Finally he spoke again.

"Is your bed anywhere near a window?"

"Yes."

"Is the window open?"

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