D'reckly she open her lips, I sees she's a furrin' lady, sir. She
asks after you and I tells her as how you are away and won't be
back till this evening. 'Oh!' she says, I then I wait!' And in
she comes without so much as with your leave or by your leave.
She told me as how you knew her, sir, and were expecting to see
her, most important, she said it was, so I hots her up a bit o'
dinner. I hopes as how I didn't do wrong,, Mr. Bellward, sir!"
"Oh, no, Martha, not at all!" Desmond replied--at random. He was
sorely perplexed as to his next move. Obviously the girl could
not stay in the house. What on earth did she want with him? And
could he, at any rate, get at the desk and read the papers of
which the note spoke and which, he did not doubt, were the
dossier of the Bellward case, before she awoke? They might, at
least, throw some light on his relations with the dancer.
"She had her dinner here by the fire," old Martha resumed her
narrative, "and about a quarter past nine comes your second
tellygram, sir, saying as how you could not arrive till five
o'clock in the morning."
Desmond glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. The hands
pointed to a quarter past five! He had lost all count of the time
in his peregrinations of the night.
"I comes in here and tells the young lady as how you wouldn't be
back last night, sir," the old woman continued, "and she says,
'Oh,' she says, 'then, where shall I go?' she says.
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