She stopped, and her eyes were dilated with terror. Arthur seized her hands.
“Margaret, I can’t go—I can’t leave you like this. For Heaven’s sake, tell me what is the matter. I’m so dreadfully frightened.”
He was aghast at the difference wrought in her during the two months since he had seen her last. Her colour was all gone, and her face had the greyness of the dead. There were strange lines on her forehead, and her eyes had an unnatural glitter. Her youth had suddenly left her. She looked as if she were struck down by mortal illness.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She looked about her anxiously. “Oh, why don’t you go? How can you be so cruel?”
“I must do something for you,” he insisted.
She shook her head.
“It’s too late. Nothing can help me now.” She paused; and when she spoke again it was with a voice so ghastly that it might have come from the lips of a corpse. “I’ve found out at last what he’s going to do with me. He wants me for his great experiment, and the time is growing shorter.”
“What do you mean by saying he wants you?”
“He wants—my life.”
Arthur gave a cry of dismay, but she put up her hand.
“It’s no use resisting. I shan’t do any good—I think I shall be glad when the moment comes. I shall at least cease to suffer.”
“But you must be mad.”
“I don’t know. I know that he is.”
