Chapter VIII

THORNDYKE SPEAKS BLUNTLY When I had entered the little sitting room and shut the door, I turned to Barbara, awaiting with some curiosity what she had to say to me. But for a while she said nothing, standing before me silently, and looking at me with a most disquieting expression. All her calm self-possession had gone. I could read nothing in her face but alarm and dismay. “It is dreadful, Rupert!” she exclaimed, at length, in a half-whisper. “It is like some awful dream! What can it all mean? I don’t dare to ask my…