Then, as if with much effort, he lay down, burying his face in the pillow.
Milo had been watching him with growing impatience to be gone.
Now he said cheerily: "That's all right, old chap! Lie still for a while.

I'll be up in a few minutes to help you undress." Standish was hurrying from the room and closing the door behind him, even as he spoke.

With the last word the door shut and Gavin could hear the big man's footsteps hastening along the upper hall toward the stair-head.
Brice gave him a bare thirty seconds' start.

Then, rising with strange energy for so dazed and broken an invalid, he left the room and followed him toward the head of the stairs.
His light footfall was soundless on the matting as he went.
He reached the top of the stairs just as Milo arrived at the bottom.

Claire was standing in the veranda doorway shading her eyes and peering out into the darkness.