"Lucy!" she whispered.
Her voice was not under control, and once more she strove to call to
Pyne.
"Lucy!" came the hoarse whisper again.
The fire continued its muted roaring, but no other sound answered to
the appeal. A horror of the companionship in which she found herself
thereupon took possession of the girl. She must escape from these
sleepers, whose spirits had been expelled by the potent necromancer,
opium, from these empty tenements whose occupants had fled. The idea
of the cool night air in the open streets was delicious.
She staggered to her feet, swaying drunkenly, but determined to reach
the door. She shuddered, because of a feeling of internal chill which
assailed her, but step by step crept across the room, opened the door,
and tottered out into the hallway. There was no sound in the flat.
Presumably Kilfane's man had retired, or perhaps he, too, was a
devotee.
Rita's fur coat hung upon the rack, and although her fingers appeared
to have lost all their strength and her arm to have become weak as
that of an infant, she succeeded in detaching the coat from the hook.
Not pausing to put it on, she opened the door and stumbled out on to
the darkened landing. Whereas her first impulse had been to awaken
someone, preferably Sir Lucien, now her sole desire was to escape
undetected.
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