had heard the bare facts. “Let’s get Mac and find out how soon we can bring her along.”
The big Irishman was in his own room. The tale did not surprise him in the least.
“I’ll have every ——— son of a ——— ——— out of the way by half-past twelve. Nothing much doing to-night. I’ll clear Mike to bed, and sit up for you myself. Back door. Come through the yard.”
“Damnation, it’s going to be risky bringing her through the town,” said Dane.
“Of course, you bloody fool,” said Mac good-humouredly, “don’t do it. Take a boat.”
And though the distance was less than half a mile that is what they did.
They found Valerie exactly as Dane had left her. The doctor at once applied stimulants to her heart and respiration and bent over her watching, while Dane stood by racked with anxiety. But strained as he was, he was struck by the picture the gloomy doctor made there on his knees, playing his small flashlight over the face of the unconscious Valerie who lay like the effigy of a mediæval princess on the top of her own sarcophagus pale and stiff.
“She’s all right, D. B. Splendid heart. She’ll come out very well.”
“Thank God!”
The doctor wrapped round her a rug they had brought from the hotel, and drew up a wooden chair so that he could look down on her face. Dane drew a stool to the other side of her and dropped on to it. After a few minutes the doctor took out his watch.
“A quarter to twelve. Well, we’d better wait till half-past. Haven’t got any cards about you, have you, Barrington?”
