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Half-an-hour later he still sat in the studio, and at last, as his man-servant came into the doorway to ask if there were any further instructions, he roused himself from his reverie.

"No. Good-night, Jacobs," said Monty.

It was quite remarkable how long that little girl's face had remained in his memory, he thought. Fresh.... She was fresh. Attractive little thing ... Greenlees seemed to like her...."

Monty laughed quietly to himself.

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Patricia was indoors. She lived in two rooms in an old house near the King's Road, and her rooms were at the top of the house. As the door snapped behind her she saw her little bedroom lamp as the only illumination of a narrow passage leading to the stairs; and instinctively she paused, her shadow thrown solid and leaping against the door, while the muffled sound of Edgar's car died away in the distance. The house was dark and silent, and Patricia's heart sank. A sigh of regret escaped her. It was hard to come so abruptly from the glowing scene she had left, with her brain in a ferment of all its new memories and wonderings, to this dingy home in which all was so tasteless. She slowly mounted the stairs, smoke from the lamp's flame smirching the glass chimney and rising acrid to her nostrils. Her bedroom was cold; and a damp shivering breath came from the open window, across which the curtains were yet undrawn. Outside the window everything was black. No lights came even from the houses that backed on to the one in which she lived. She could hear the rustling of the rain. A shudder shook Patricia. Deeply chilled, she moved away from the window.