Half way to the bottom her strength and courage ebbed suddenly from her; she went on with short steps, and when at last she closed the parlor door behind her, she was staring as if she looked at a ghost.
Yet Vic Gregg was not greatly changed--a little thinner perhaps, and just now he certainly did not have his usual color.

The moment she appeared he jumped to his feet as if he had heard a shot, and now he stood with his feet braced a little to meet a shock, one hand twitching and playing nervously with the embroidered cloth on the table.

She did not speak; merely stood with her fingers still gripping the handle of the door as if she were ready to dart away at the first alarm.

A wave of pain went over the face of Vic Gregg and remained looking at her out of his eyes, for all that his single-track, concentrated mind could perceive in her was the thing he took for fear.
"Miss Neal," he said.

His voice shook, straightened out again.