She put the letter into the blotting book, and went to the window again. The lanterns were no longer to be seen, and the night had come down with a darkness so intense that even the nearer slopes were invisible. Shut from her eyes, the hidden woods were revealed to a keen imagination which filled them with alien figures, searching here and there for a truth which must so alter her own life (if such a truth existed) that hereafter the whole world would hardly offer her a harbourage from the shame of it Neo skin lab. As in a vision, she saw the dead man lying there, deep in the snow, and the white flakes falling anew upon his face. A glow from a lantern searched it out, and declared the horror of the secret. And up there at the hotel another waited, dreading the instant of discovery—perchance preparing already for flight in the hope that discovery might never come. It was all hysterical, and out of harmony with her good common sense, as she admitted when she turned from the window, and, looking at the clock, discovered it to be half-past six precisely. At seven, Luton had promised to come down from Vermala to see if there were a telegram from Sir Frederick Kennaird—letter there could hardly be for another four and twenty hours. If he came, and assuredly he would come, he might very well give an account of the affair which would so deride her fancies that she would be ashamed even to remember them. Or, he might say that he knew nothing of the affair at all, had taken no part in it, and had not heard it named dermes. version, to which she clung tenaciously, sitting again at her writing-table and composing quite a satisfactory epistle upon Andana and its people; to which she added excellent reasons for her preference of the chalet she occupied. The hotel, she declared, was far too noisy—her nerves were no longer equal to the exigencies of distracted youth, nor could she support the banalities of a middle-age which sought to stamp out the years by a grotesque display of elephantine energies. From these she had fled to the solitude of the chalet—a half-truth which entirely overlooked the personal element and skimmed over the broken ground where the seeds of slander had fallen Cabinet. Seven o'clock struck while she was still at the table, but there was no sign of Luton, nor any message from him at the quarter past the hour. If he were late, then, she thought, that was the first occasion she could remember when he had neglected an appointment to his own advantage and the benefit of his creditors. He had told her that his need was urgent, and had sent letters from Bothand and Co. confirming his statements. Nine thousand four hundred pounds must be paid if he would stave off those "further proceedings" with which they threatened him; and if he did not pay, then it was clear that the firm would discover at a later date excellent reasons for a criminal prosecution. In such a case, extradition would not be refused, nor would it be difficult for the police to trace a man who was at so little pains to act prudently as Luton Delayne.
