If I live, I will kill thee,If I die, I forgive thee!
If I live, I will kill thee,If I die, I forgive thee!
You took that oath and you broke it. You revealed a secret and you denounced to the police! For you four heroes died! Yet you live—because you were shielded by Nicola Pascoe. He forsook the Honorable Society and fled with you, you and your wife, and for love of that sister, whom he feared to be condemned like you, has he lived an exile and a shamed man! And for this has the Honorable Society sought and found you at the last—is it not so!"
He knew better than to answer, this time. But his silence did him no good. "He denies not! He can not speak! He knows well his guilt! His guilty heart, it shows in his face! He has an evil eye!" So howled the pure-minded chorus, feeling that Mr. Gumama had had the floor long enough. Timid spirits began to call upon the saints for protection when through the hubbub there lightly threaded the clipped final syllables and soft, melancholy rhythm of some Parmesan; strangely netted out of the virtuous north and lifting the tender chant, "I demand the suppression of Filippi Alieni!"
"I demand—" "I demand—" The loft was full of it. "Let him be put to sleep." "I volunteer!" "I volunteer!" "NO, I! I am the older novice!" And then the Parmesan, "I will put him to sleep and bear him to the capo in testa in our name!"
"Pazienza! Pepe, the greed for glory is well. But be not too greedy.—Admit, Alieni!" thundered Mr. Gumama. "All else is useless! Admit! Admit!"
"Oh, si! Si! Si!" cried the young fellow, who had been standing as if stunned. And now he threw his arms above his head and rocked himself between them, with a transport that matched the crowd's.
It, too, was stunned by that simple admission into a moment's silence in which Mr. Gumama gave forth, "You have said. You are condemned. Filippi Alieni, you must now be put to sleep."
Still he took it quietly, stupidly, looking questioningly, incredulously, into Mr. Gumama's face. Then some instinct turned his head and at last he saw and quite mistook the sentinel with the knife. He gave a convulsive start and sprang through their hands like an uncoiled whiplash. As he leaped on the surprised sentinel the rope of the little vendor caught him in its noose. Still there was a moment when he was the active center of a writhing knot, a centipede of men rolling, tearing and struggling upon the ground; bounding and falling like one, tripping and throttling each other and kicking the wrong ribs. A babel of oaths and sporting outcries shook the place, pierced from the street without by the strains of an emulous organ-grinder jocularly jerking out the tango. And then the noose tightened, the strength which was only energy collapsed, and the struggling prisoner, prone upon his back, could only bite the hand which agreeably attempted a bit of triumphant tickling. The bitten one, with an outraged shriek, caught him a buffet between the eyes that made his head swim and then a train roared past and its infernal reverberations quieted all sound. When it was gone the renewed stillness and the restored, dim light found the prisoner on his feet; upheld by a guard on either hand and safely lashed, from knee to shoulder, in firm-laced rope.
"Filippi Alieni, have you anything to say before you sleep?"
The young man stood drooping in the hands of his captors, still breathing desperately; not flushed from his struggle but pale and faint as if his blood were stolen by some hidden pain. His throat swelled with a bitterness which he was now too hopeless or too spiritless to loose, and Mr. Gumama saw that it was doubtful if his question had penetrated to a mind that was one concentrated egoism. A barrel which Mrs. Pascoe had emptied of its finery, was brought into the cleared space before the court and Mr. Gumama, examining it, ordered, "Find a cover. And nails." Before he repeated, "Do you, then, make no request?"
This time he shook his head, with a long automatic shake, playing for time. Yet he had no hope. He had used himself up in that first spurt and the spirit upon which Mrs. Pascoe had lately built sank slowly back again till there was no life left in his face except, in the depths of his dark eyes, a waiting, raging stillness of despair.—Mr. Gumama regarded him disapprovingly. "You do not wish to make peace with God?"
He answered with a grinding laugh and let his head drop down again upon his breast. Even the organ-grinder had changed from the tango to the Miserere. Those present had piously removed their hats. Mr. Gumama pointed toward the bonds of the two condemned men as if giving a signal.
"Wait yet a little!"
It was the coo of the Parmesan. He had been diligently and amusedly studying the last prisoner. "I wish to ask him a thing."
The prisoner drew a quick, scared breath, but he did not look up.
Mr. Gumama, annoyed at the Parmesan for putting himself forward, tartly replied, "Ask, then!"
"Alieni o' n'infama," said the Parmesan, pleasantly, "what would you do to remain awake?"
The crowd and the prisoner gave a simultaneous start. This was too much! The cry of the crowd was a baulked tiger's. Regardlessly, the dark eyes of the prisoner leaped to those of the Parmesan and clung there with their bright questioning, tenacious as bats. Mr. Gumama turned upon the Parmesan with a gesture like a blow.
"Oh, oh, oh!" sighed the Parmesan, lightly reproachful. "Let me speak, who have thought of things. We of the Arm know a game of our own. It was invented by the basista Alieni, and it calls itself the Duel by Wine." He bowed low to Mr. Gumama. "Sir, it is not our custom to bring evildoers here in packages and let them be warned of that which might befall them so much the easier accidentally, after dark, in the rough street. So I suppose—what else?—that those two are to attempt the Duel by Wine. Yes? And that he who wins lives to suppress the traitor-leaving him in the barrel on the wharf, signed with our sign? And bearing his token—that bracelet will do—to the capo in testa?"
"It is the plan."
"And have you not one more plan? No? Sir—pardon!—you do not—in your greatness you do not—reflect! There is, to us of the fifth paranza, another danger. Enlighten us, sir, please, what this other is."
His look met and challenged Mr. Gumama's, upon whose face intelligence and admission reluctantly broke forth.
"Ah-ha! Is, then, the sentence of the Mother Society the only sentence that we have to fear? Is there not a sentence that will strike at us and, perhaps, through us at her? The foe which has enchained Angelo's brother, the foe from which, suspecting us not at all, Nicola flees—the policemen of the Americans! Ay di me—listen, my dears! Does not this cold foe ever seek and question night and day, with pictures always in the journals, for one who perhaps knows too much and who has a girl's tongue to talk? You think all will be well when you have suppressed the traitor. What if there should be a danger deeper than the traitor? Tell us, sir, your plan about the pretty one, the little one, the little Nancia—Oh, what name! Nancia Cornees!"
The prisoner had never taken his eyes from the Parmesan's face. Their hope was so cruel that it might have been fear, instead. If, from the world of responsibility, the girl's name penetrated to him with any meaning he gave no sign. The same animal concentration abode in his close stare.
But the new anxiety at once affected the meeting. Only Mr. Gumama, resenting this intrusion, shrugged, snubbingly. "Clever youth, there is a plan for her, wholly good. When the Signora Alieni expected her American lover to travel with her she could not take with her his betrothed—it would not have been seemly! So Nicola sends her to-night with the gang of Roselli, which is soon, too, sailing for Brazil. There they must restore her to himself. He knows not he will not sail. Very well. She is slight but she is fair. She will do well for the Rosellis in Brazil."
"I do not—pardon!—I do not think of the Rosellis. What will she do for us?"
"In Brazil? If she were a danger even there would not the Signora Alieni have destroyed that danger?"
"The Signora Alieni has never done such work—she has no practice. Moreover, be sure she fears what Nicola feared in the beginning—the curse of his mother!"
A voice remarked, "His mother is ugly and old. If she should die she could not curse."
"True. But we are busy."
Beppo began to exclaim, "It is too bad! Time after time have I asked for her! I, too, love her and could be happy. And I need them like her every day! Why should she be sent to Brazil? I never have anything!" He stamped with rage and his nose began to bleed again.
Other young ricondeterros, complaining of the dearth of blondes, began to protest against Brazil. The Parmesan looked at Mr. Gumama with a smile. "Is she not a firebrand, eh? She who is so sought by the police, is it to the police she shall tell her story?"
Brushing the Parmesan aside the capo insisted, "She is not of our nation. It is against the custom. It is a greater danger than she is. Even if she should meet, so far away, with men of the Americans, what does she know?"
The Parmesan, now visibly measuring strength with Mr. Gumama, responded merely, "What is it, Beppo?"
Beppo, past the handkerchief he ostentatiously held to his nose, cried out, "She knows everything!" As this won him the center of the stage he proceeded in a series of sniffling shrieks, "I will tell you! I am the cousin of Nicola. I am the friend of their house. I play much with Maria but I watch and listen. Attention! She knows all, all, all! She seemed at first wrapped in the love of the basista. They slept side by side. She made a promise to ask, of her own accord, for sleep; but then she is ill and when she is well again she has some notion and she will not—why? Because she wills to tell all she knows! She, too, has watched and listened! She knows my name—and yours, Giuseppe Gumama! Under her red hair she carries death for you, Antonelli! And for you—and you—and you!"
The meeting was on its feet, swaying with passion and fear and gesticulating, with congenial resolution, "I demand the suppression—"
"I, too!"
"And I!"
"And I!"
"I demand the suppression of Mees Cornees!"
The capo's authority was shaken in a paranza which was a paranza no longer. Obedience was not what it had been in the Arm of Justice.
"Hands of the Arm," Beppo adjured, "is she not now at our meeting-place? Knows she not that? Did the basista conceal when Nicola was made a capo in the Honorable Society? Knows she not that? Oh, friends of my blood, can she not tellthat name? By the body of Bacchus, I see her in my dreams! There is a shower of gold about her! If she is not for me, do not give her to the Rosellis—let her sleep!"
The meeting echoed, in one soft whisper of satisfaction, "Let her sleep!"
"S-s-ssh!" said Mr. Gumama.
He said it instinctively, glancing toward the scuttle. But he realized that the precedent of dealing solely with his own nation must now be set aside; he heard the people's voice. Alas, he had also to baulk it of its Duel by Wine.
"Let it be so. Firenzi, you will suppress the traitor and deliver him to the wharf. Choose two apprentices to help you with the barrel. Pachotto, you will take Beppo and the brother of Antonelli's wife and proceed to our old meeting-place. When you have suppressed the girl Cornees bring back her token."
"Sir," the Parmesan again coolingly corrected, "Nicola has still with him some of his men and the Rosellis. There is but one man who, without suspicion, can reach past these to the little Cornees.—Alieni o' n'infama," he pleasantly repeated, "would you do this to remain awake?"
The prisoner felt himself quiver as though he had been struck. He could not control the hope which was almost a sickness that rose in him at these words. He heard the popular cry surge up against him, hissing and protesting; Firenzi and Pachotto were the most horribly excited for he and they were the only persons in the room not having a good time. His quick glances, furtive and secret, ran questing among the lips that condemned him; when he lifted them to his questioner the sharp intake of his breath promised his soul away. But Mr. Gumama turned upon the Parmesan and told him that he forgot himself.
"Ah, sir, in private a word. Alieni, does he speak English?" He broke his beautiful Italian into a strange sound. "Spik Inglese, Alieni?"
The prisoner, trembling to oblige, responded in the same dialect, "Unstan' Inglese!"
It did not oblige—the Parmesan frowned. "Unstan' Inglese verra goood?" He coaxed, winningly, hoping for a denial.
Now the prisoner, though he understood English perfectly, was no fool and could see a possible weapon when it was put into his hand. "I deplore!" said he, shrugging sadly. "Heartseek! Unstan' notta mooch!" And he tried not to vibrate with greed of what they should say.
"Va bene! Spik Inglese, us! Spik low! Oh, Gumama, let heem put da girl to slip—heem! Let heem tak' for token—Whatta she wear?" he asked Beppo.
Beppo considered and then pointed to the gold bracelet under the old Sicilian cuff. "But silvere!" He lapsed into Italian. The girl had had three silver trinkets—a ring, a locket, a bracelet. Nicola had taken the locket, the ring she had lost. "It ees time she loosa da t'ird!" grinned the Parmesan. "Ssh! He ees leesten!" Their voices sank to a whisper. Inordinately acute though his senses always were the prisoner could no longer understand a syllable.
"I go weeth Beppo an' Chigi. Let heem settle da girl an' tak' her token. Denwesettle heem an' tak' botta tokens! Tak' dem to capo in testa for show extrra gooda faith in nama da Arma of Zhoostees. Den Honorrahble Soceeata embrass us! We done gooda!" He inhaled with languid elegance and returned to the world a ring of cigarette smoke.
Still the prisoner could not catch a word. The decision hung fire. The protesting roar surged louder and louder and the cries of Pachotto and Firenzi became tiger cries. Mr. Gumama suddenly called to order. He had found a way to satisfy the Parmesan and yet to maintain his supremacy.
"This meeting promised Firenzi and Pachotto a chance of mercy and a chance of service. This meeting keeps its word. The chance is to be now. But for Alieni, also. Do not rebel. They were to enter on the Duel by Wine. But for the Duel by Wine the basista Alieni has sent us three cups. Why should not the prisoner Alieni play at the game of his wife?"
He had turned the tide. Their craving for games of chance, always temporarily stronger than fear, anger or duty, flared into high fire. Again was Mr. Gumama the popular man. Even on the prisoner smiles were lavished. And still for some crevice of safety, as if in every muscle of their faces, his eyes sought.
The meeting got happily to work, like a good child. It brought forth a dice-box and dice, a bottle of wine and, wrapped in a colored handkerchief, two triangular knives. In that musical neighborhood another hand-organ had long since followed the first; "The Wearing of the Green," which had made melodious the Parmesan's battle, now gave way to the Tales of Hoffman and the Barcarolle, a rhythm that swayed in every busy motion and humming tongue as the prisoner watched the table cleared and the painted jugs set forth. Mrs. Pascoe was called up to fetch a lantern; as she withdrew all three prisoners were faced toward the wall; Mr. Gumama took a twist of paper from his pocket, shielded it from view, and dropped a tablet from it into each of two jugs. Then he filled them all with wine. The prisoners were turned round again. "Alieni o' n'infama," called the Parmesan, blithely, "you are very much afraid!"
He knew it and sank his head on his breast.
"Cowards play well. They grow brave from fear. You will be desperate."
The young fellow shuddered. But he tried to keep his head clear.
"Cheer up, traditore! It is true our haste but sentenced you to the knife and the knife is quick. But do you not choose to risk a few drops and die wriggling—when, if you are lucky, you may live? When you have but to strike, afterwards, a little soft blow to make your peace!" The Parmesan, snatching up a triangular knife and, despite the remonstrances of Mr. Gumama, one of the jugs, thrust them jocularly under the prisoner's nose.
The tormented fellow, with an uncontrollable gasp that spilled the wine, bent and kissed the jug. A burst of childish applause approved his enthusiasm. A dank moisture of relief broke out upon him. At least they saw that he was resolved and would not fear to let him try. What was coming?
The meeting had formed into a circle as for a cock fight. He, Firenzi and Pachotto and the table with the dice and wine were in the center. The silent circle devoured him with applauding, encouraging glances. He was horribly aware of the two other men, larger, heavier, perhaps therefore luckier—the bigger the build, he had thought before, the greater the luck!—They were all too still! What were they going to make him do now?
Mr. Gumama himself took down a strap from the wall and tested its strength.
"Firenzi, then you, Pachotto, then you, Alieni, you will appeal to the dice. He who throws highest will have first choice of the jugs. Of the three who drink, one will live. It will take some time to settle this. The meeting will disperse, but a committee will return. The man whom they find alive will go with Beppo and Chigi and you, Pepe, to our meeting-place and put to sleep that girl. Those not surviving will be signed with our sign—but only one thrust for each paranza of this district.—Filippi Alieni, what is the matter with you? You show no feeling at what I say!"
For all his brilliant, questioning eyes, it was true he looked extremely blank; his expression too often merely followed theirs with an opposite. "Well, there must always be a first time. It is true, Alieni, is it not so, that you have never suppressed a life?"
There are bitternesses which fear cannot quench. Having no free hand to beat his breast he turned his head with restless passion from side to side and in a high, shrill, wild desolation, a Latin sweetness of hysteria roughened by his grinding laugh, he cried aloud, "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!"
"There is no need for irreverence!" exclaimed Mr. Gumama, scandalized. "That is all. Loose their bonds."
Firenzi and Pachotto ran to examine the jugs, voting simultaneously for the immunity of the golden scales—what others? So that the first choice would be all important. But the third prisoner had given his last flash. He dropped his shivering face and hid it in his hands.
"Sit!"
They dropped beside the table.
"Swear obedience to the decree of Fate!"
All three laid a hand on the crossed triangular knives. Mr. Gumama purposed the oath. "Filippi Alieni, your lips shake so that you do not repeat distinctly. Say, I swear!"
"I swear!"
"Rise!"
"Firenzi, make your appeal."
Firenzi started forward on a rush. But after a step or two he halted, glared about him as if just waking up, and then went forward, sagging like a drunkard. Arrived at the table he crossed himself, shook the dice, and, whimpering, fell on his knees. His shaking hand crawled along the table, groping for the dice-box and lifted it. The crowd, straining in upon him, buzzed. For the number was moderate. He had thrown a three and a two. And kneeled there, blubbering. The courage of the Honorable Society does not remain fast in all washes.
"Pachotto, make the appeal."
He, too, started with bravado; he was perhaps half way across when they had to catch and drag him forward. He threw wild and they had to support his wrist. Even so one die fell underneath the edge of the saucer in which the box had stood. That in view was another two-spot. If, however, that under the saucer were even a four he was ahead in the throw. They moved the saucer—the die was a five. Pachotto leaped in the air with triumph—Firenzi, yellow and cursing, tried to fold his arms. Frightful sounds issued from his throat, upon which the cords stood out.
"Alieni, you will make the appeal."
He who had been a gentleman drew himself together and came slowly forward. He was now the darling of the crowd. But he did not guess that; he came of a superstitious tribe and to him, too, it seemed important to win from the start. His soul trembled, but steadily and softly he stole to the table. Now he was arrived, looking down, one concentrated apprehension, on his fate. Lifting the dice-box he once more threw out his bright suspicious glance into the crowding faces. "Whatever gods there be!"—he threw the dice. Over these he bent with a sort of sweep and then, uttering a sharp hiss, sprang up like a jack-knife. The crowd swayed, yelped and shivered with amusement into a triumphing crow. He had thrown two sixes. Pachotto uttered a piercing yell and fell on his stomach in a dead faint.
"Filippi Alieni, of the jugs you have the first choice."
He stood as if nothing had happened. He had suddenly realized that his situation was really more terrible than ever. Watching, watching, he could descry no help. None of those alert, elated faces had a hint in it, not a congratulating hand pointed toward the fateful jug. He moistened his lips and looked mechanically at the dice which had thrown him this choice. But the dice, too, were dumb. Then, at last, he looked at the jugs.
There was the red design, the white and the green. His hand crept up and touched the chord at his throat. Scarlet was her favorite! But did she know? White—there was no luck in white. Green, the color of hope! Of resurrection! Yes, but to be resurrected one must first die! Red, again, was blood-color—but there was blood at every turn! Whose blood did this stand for—whose? Ah, yes, the scales—the scales were different! Gold, silver, and gray! The scales were very little, so it was they that held the secret! Silver, gray and gold! Why gray? Silver—hadn't he heard them whispering about silver? Why, there were some words—He dropped to the ground with the jug, leaning on the table and pressing the scrolled legend to the lantern.—Silver pays! Pays whom? Pays what? Oh, God, to understand! What was the other—gold? He was panting—his breath smeared the glass of the lantern. It was dry and cut his lips like grass-blades! Yet he reeked with cold sweat, it was running into his mouth! He wiped the glass clear with one cuff. Steady! Take care! Can't you read, you fool! Gold buys. Oh, heaven, what would it buy here? Life—freedom—what else would anybody buy? What was the sense of it, if it meant anything else? But it might be a lie! "She's a natcherul-born devil." It was a lie she would delight in! One chance! One! Everything on it—everything! Never to leave here—to die here—here, where no one would ever know! Without doing what he had secretly meant to do, without ever having lifted a hand—to die in torment, squirming on the floor like a rat with torn bowels—There was one other jug. Gray—what a color! Ghost-color—was that what she meant? Lead slays! But, once more, slays whom? Lead slays—lead—lead—Lead!
A change passed over him. He became very still. Then, shaking with suppressed eagerness, he got slowly to his feet. He put his dense hair back from his eyes. And those eyes, hypnotized by the little jug with its gray scales, never left it; drinking it up before he could raise it to his lips. His mouth gaped for it with hanging jaw. He raised it in hands that gradually steadied and then over its brim, he gave the faces that fawned in upon him, breathless, one last look.—"He has chosen!"
They might be less than human, but he and they were still living creatures; and, in ten minutes, what would he be? Beyond them were dusky walls, built by human hands, chairs, a bureau, lithographs, all the warm furnishings of life; windows into the world, into the swarming, chattering streets where the lamps began to glow, while from round the corner came the clang of trolley-cars; whistles, calls, footsteps, were in his ears, laughter above the crash of wheels,
"Give my regards to Broadway—"
"Give my regards to Broadway—"
That was the hand-organ, tired of opera and getting down to business;
"Remember me to Herald Square—"
"Remember me to Herald Square—"
It filled the whole room! A lighted train swept by; he could see the faces of people reading evening papers, people who complained at hanging on to straps! The roar of it was familiar and dear as a beloved voice at home but it passed and left him quite alone.
"Tell all the boys on Forty-second StreetThat I will soon be there!"
"Tell all the boys on Forty-second StreetThat I will soon be there!"
—"Choose, Alieni, choose! Drink! Drink!"
Everything passed from his eyes. He was blind as before he was born. Then his mouth was in the wine; he drank it to the last drop; the jug, with a clatter that he heard perfectly but no longer understood, rolled at his feet. "É fatto!" said he, in a low, clear voice. "É fatto—it is done!" And his face dropped into his hands.
The meeting came about him but he did not know it. Around one wrist a strap was buckled and the strap's other end nailed to the table so that the death-agonies might not wander too far. A like precaution was taken with the other men when they had drunk. He did not notice it. He looked at the floor. Firenzi, upon whom chance had forced the silver scales, gave a horrible sound of retching and slid from his stool, the strap holding his arm. A quiver passed through the body of the first drinker, but he would not look. The meeting picked up its lantern and trooped—rather reluctantly but leaving the hatch open—chattering down the steps. The hands of the Arm dismissed Mrs. Pascoe, fetched some more wine, cut some tobacco and sat down to the business of making bets while they waited. He did not miss them.
He, too, waited.
Twenty minutes later, in the darkness, the loft was quite still. Two bodies, horribly contorted, lay straining on their straps. The rigor of death was already settling upon those convulsive heaps. The faint squares of the windows made a kind of glimmer by which it was possible to discern a pale face, a slight figure; this leaned against the table, which it clutched with hands of steel. He who had trusted to the leaden scales had trusted well.
In that darkness, in that silence, through that horror of squalid death which had not been silent, he had shed the rags of his hysteria and had caught again the concentration, the keenness, the readiness of that moment when Mrs. Pascoe had called on him to be a man. But what did he see in those empty shadows, and for what did he nerve himself? The figure there at the table was desperate, but it was very slight, and at the end of no road—valor nor cowardice nor vengeance—could he see escape. They were all blocked, those roads, the program too close built and every knot too tightly tied. Whatever he might wish, there was but one thing he could do. A knife was to be put into his hand and he had no choice except to strike. After all that had passed it was perhaps even with eagerness that silently, alone among those shadows, he embraced his fate.
A stir began to rise from below; the men down in the garage were coming to pack the barrel. He heard the mounting footstep of his guard, ready to convey him to the secret meeting-place of the Arm of Justice; along that road where it should deal with him, when he had dealt with Nancy Cornish.
It was fully dark under the sail-cloth of the table d'hôte. A strong smell of rancid wicks disturbed nobody and in the charged, suspensive air the cheap lamps burned with a still flame. This may in part have been due to Herrick's tensely strung imagination, which Christina's message of the night before still mercilessly played upon. From that source no drop of further information had fallen through Tantalus on to the parched tongue of Herrick's nor of Wheeler's nor of the Law's desire.
That afternoon Herrick had seen Stanley off from the station where not six weeks ago they had met as strangers. And so little was Fate's veil lifted for him, even now, that he had no forewarning of when next, nor why, he should be there again!—Stanley had, however, told him Ten Euyck's latest news—how it was to the table d'hôte the Italians had conveyed their liberated prisoner from the Tombs!
The boy looked at his friend a little suspiciously even while he repeated Ten Euyck's chagrin: "That's a hideously shameful thing to happen to me! It's the annoyance of a blind, stupid, brutal reproof—when I've worked so hard and suffered so much! Here, in my own district—Under my own hand—!" There are no unalloyed elations in this world! Nor did there seem any doubt in Ten Euyck's mind that this was the long-sought-for secret place, where they should find a printing-press. But he forebore to raid it until evening, when all possible birds should have returned to the nest, and contented himself with the sending of his disguised operatives peacefully to fetch from it Will Denny, before whose coming Stanley had fled the police station. That young gentleman had also gathered from Wheeler's thunderstorm of oaths that Christina's manager considered himself under surveillance. And this had made Herrick wonder if the same were not true of himself.
On account of his momentarily expected cablegram it was a crushing suspicion. He spent an afternoon of aloof and goaded wandering, and at last, shielded as he hoped by the darkness and by the company of a whole group of entering diners, yielded to the temptation of the table d'hôte. He could not doubt it was encompassed by spies; he could not but attend the seizure, the crisis, the outcome. Here, more than anywhere, were the lines converging; here, for to-night, was the center of the web. He said to himself, then, in his ignorance, that nothing mortal should induce him to forsake it.
Under the sail-cloth there was no longer any room; but, within doors, save for a couple of men at a distant table, Herrick was quite alone. There was no change in the deportment of the place, no disturbance. The Italian proprietress, in her comings and goings, found time to reply that the old lady was still in the country but her prototype, the little gray parrot, which he had not seen for a long time, was climbing in and out of its cage and the angelic children still snuffled about the floor. It was on these innocents that Herrick began as usual to practise his Italian when the proprietress had gone affably to see about his order, but if he thought one of them would lightly drop Christina's address he was mistaken. Smother-y as the place was, with that same looming sultriness of a week ago, agitated in its daily business, its pulse did not beat so hard as his, its imagination did not quiver, like the figures of a cinematograph, reviewing the movements of a motor-car that until yesterday had sped through mire and dust and blood, through sunrise and midnight, past the spread, astonished wings of the marble Hoover lions, past the smoking-ruins of a post-office, past Riley's where the shadow danced, after a will o' the wisp. There was no suggestion, here, which could lift that phantom light; the customers ordered, the little fat boy, next in age to Maria Rosa, leaned familiarly against his knee, the parrot continued to clamber over its cage, talking steadily, rapidly and monotonously to itself, and then Herrick said in surprise,
"Why, the bird's speaking English!"
The parrot looked at him coldly, disinterred something which it had buried in its food-cup, gnawed on the treasure, and dropped it. The little fat boy picked it up and smiled at Herrick. Herrick said, "Let's see!" It was a silver ring, holding a bluish-green Egyptian scarab.
It seemed to Herrick that he had heard of such a ring before, and he tried to remember where. One of the men at the further table left and the other was buried in a foreign newspaper. Herrick got up and went over to the desk. That was English the bird was speaking. "No, no, no, no! I don't believe it. I don't beli—"
"Polly," said Herrick, "what are you talking about? And what do I know about this ring?"
The bird burst into a shriek of the ungodly laughter of its kind, pecked the ring out of his hand, backed away with it, dropped it again; and then, out of a perfect stillness, with its little eyes fixed on his face it replied—
"Ask Nancy Cornish!"
Oh, yes, the Italian proprietress cheerfully informed him, the parrot had been in the country with Maria Rosa and her great-aunt. Truly, the great-aunt was fond of the country, she was still there. When was he going to see Maria Rosa again? Oh, there, alas!—Maria Rosa had gone with her father to the moving-picture show—
He could get no further and he feared to excite conjecture. He might waylay the little girl as she returned, but not too near the watched house—nor was the idea of the father encouraging. Nevertheless, he betook himself outside, turning toward Third Avenue where the picture-shows flourished. About two blocks down the street he took refuge in the hole of a tobacconist, whose door stood open into the warm dusk. On the farther corner the bright blue interior of a delicatessen that was also a fruit stand blazed hot with gas and, in exchange for a bottle of oil, a child passed a coin over the counter. The gas gleamed on the child's face and Herrick crossed the street. Here was Maria Rosa and here the moving-picture show which she attended!
He stopped on the outside for some nuts and affected surprise when Maria appeared. She accepted various delicacies and was freely chatty about her country visit. Oh, she had been in a beautiful place; grass, trees, flowers—nothing of its whereabouts could be ascertained. Great-auntie had lived there with old auntie—old auntie was her mama—when she was a little girl no bigger than Maria Rosa! But they had gone often to a grand big place where Cousin Nick's office used to be in the basement. But the morning after they brought the sick lady the things for the office were all gone! Ah, the grand big place had made the greater impression, but ignorance had evidently been carefully preserved. Herrick tried the words "Waybridge" and "Benning's Point" to no avail. With "river" he was more successful. Did you go there by the boat? Apparently not. Finally it came out that you went there by the walk past old auntie's house. And what pretty thing had she ever noticed about old auntie's house? Eh? Come, now? What did she like best?
"The marble kitties with wings."
The marble—
A child had dropped an address, after all!
Herrick, reaching into his pocket for a time table, had discovered a train for Benning's Point at eight-fifteen when, hearing his name he turned; beyond the now hurrying figure of Maria Rosa Joe Patrick was advancing toward him.
The boy came up hastily, extending an envelope addressed to Herrick in Mrs. Deutch's hand. As he took it he saw that Joe was brimming with some communication. "I saw you from down street. She sent for me an' says to bring you this. I was lookin' for you when I met Mr. Ten Euyck and he said the place to find you was around here."
"Touché!" Herrick said to himself. Even at that moment he vouchsafed an admiring smile to Ten Euyck's able conveying of a taunt.
"Mr. Herrick?"
"Yes, Joe."
"I got to get right back in time for the theayter. But I'd like to speak to you a minute."
"Walk back toward the Square with me."
"It's something I been worried about telling for days an' now I'm goin' to. I mean—Mr. Herrick, I wouldn't tell it to anybody but a friend o' hers! But I make out that it's right to tell it to you.—You remember that night out to Riley's?"
"Yes."
"An' the shadder the chaufers seen?"
"Yes?"
"I was there. My cousin Sweeney sent for me, an' my uncle an' me come out together. As we come into the yard—that toon—you know! There was the shadder—I seen it, too! And another man seen it an' skipped up the steps an' went inside. Me after him! An' before he'd got in, hardly, out he bounced with a lady. That lady wasn't no Mrs. Riley, Mr. Herrick. It was—her!"
"You've seen the moving-picture?"
"Yes, sir."
"And this gesture was the same?"
"Yes, sir."
"So that you thought you saw Miss Hope's shadow?"
"I know I did, sir."
"Wait. This gentleman, had you ever seen him before?"
"No, I never laid eyes on him."
"He went right into the room?"
"Popped right in as if he lived there!"
"And came out with Miss Hope?"
"Yes, sir."
"How was she dressed?"
"She had on a long coat an' a fussed up hat o' Mrs. Riley's."
"And no one else saw them?"
"No, sir. They run down the back-stairs as everybody come up the front."
"She was willing to go with him, then? He wasn't forcing her?"
"Well, you bet he wasn't! She was hangin' right on to him!"
"What was your idea of the whole business?"
"I thought mebbe she done it for a signal to him when to come in."
"Now, Joe, don't you believe that—it being, as you say, done so quick—and you having just seen this shadow which you had taken for Miss Hope's, you might have imagined it was she who came out with this man?"
"No, Mr. Herrick. I was at the door when they come out. I saw her face clear. I didn't make no mistake this time."
"And you didn't follow?"
"No, sir. Because—because—Oh, Mr. Herrick, she seen me as plain as I see you an' she smiled at me!"
Herrick paused with a threatening cry. "Why didn't you speak to her, then? Why didn't you tell—"
"Because, Mr. Herrick, when she opened her eyes wide and smiled at me, that way, she put her finger to her lips! Oh, Mr. Herrick, I ain't ever told a soul but you!"
She put her finger to her lips! Secret she had ever been, and there was another way in which Christina had never failed. She had never failed, in any stress of change or chance, to seize the measure of a devotion and use it to its hilt.
She smiled and put her finger to her lips! She pleased herself, then! She was free! She came and went at her own pleasure! Secretly, with companions of her choice! While he, in the room below—That night, too! That night of the road and the fields, of Denny and the yellow house!
Bitterness mastered him. An indifference like the indifference of sleep somehow wearied him to the bone. After Joe's departure, when he stopped under a street-lamp to open Mrs. Deutch's letter, he scarcely cared what it contained.
"—When you were not at home he sent this to me. Think you for yourself the meaning for it. What in myself I believed and prayed, that afternoon, now in person have I ascertained. Christina was born in this city of New York; she was baptized in the same month in the Church of the Holy Service, April 17, 1892."
He unfolded Gabrielli's cablegram:
Girl you inquire of victimized family named Hope, in America. They lived at Naples 1886. Record daughter born to Hopes, Allegra, not Christina, 1886. Died 1889.
The Hopes had had a child, that died three years before Christina was born! What was the meaning in the case of this dead baby? And if Christina was Mrs. Pascoe's child, what had the death of Allegra Hope to do with her? How could she have passed herself off on the Hopes for a dead child six years older than herself? He knew that somewhere in his aching brain the answer quivered to spring forth, when—at about the time when the Italians started with their prisoner from the garage—an open taxi hesitated at the corner nearest to the table d'hôte and then spun on without stopping. As it passed under the lamp Herrick was just leaving, a veiled lady rose in it to her tall height and pulled on a long, light coat. And all the pulses in his body stopped as though they had been stricken dead. For his eyes had recognized Christina.
There was no other cab in sight. But fortunately a 'bus was just starting, and bye and bye he plunged from that into a taxi. All the way up Fifth Avenue he continued to keep his quarry well in sight; flashing in and out beneath the lamps, the beautiful tall figure sitting lightly erect and neither shunning nor avoiding the public gaze. At first he thought she had come back to be well in time for to-morrow night, but at Forty-second Street she turned toward the depot. She was making for the same train as himself.
A policeman, who should have died before he ever was born, let her cab through the block and held up Herrick's. He saw with horror that it was possible he should miss the train. Then, with a thrill of hope, that they would probably both miss it. When he got to the depot there was no sign of her. He tore like a madman across the vast stretches and up and down the flights of stairs by which modern travel is precipitated and came to the gate. She was inside, just stepping on the last car of the train. Officials were shouting at her, enraged, because the train had begun to creep.
"Tickets, tickets!" said the man at the gate. He was resolute, and Herrick had to pick him up and lift him to one side. It took an instant, and now the train was under way. But Herrick, as a free-born male unhampered even by a suit-case, was privileged to risk his neck, and he flew down the platform and gathered himself to leap upon the car. His hand was outstretched for the railing but it never reached it. A single zealous employee plunged at him, roaring. The sound halted his quarry in the doorway, and when she saw him she stepped back on to the platform of the car, bending toward him with a look of eager amusement, and throwing back her veil. And Herrick lost his chance to jump.
For her face, framed in soft flames of red, of golden fire, was the face of a stranger. It was extremely lovely, but for one curious defect. She had a blue eye and a brown.
Herrick lay in the long grass of the wooded lot, against the wall of the Hoover place. Already the night was velvet-black, and hot and thunder-scented as in summer. A million vibrations that were scarcely sound stirred with the myriad lives of leaf and blade in the dense silence. And his expectancy vibrated too, reaching for the end of a long chase. His slower train had followed on the very heels of that malign and radiant red-haired changeling, whose mysterious brew he was at last to taste for himself. Not this time in a little yellow cottage beside an open road, but in that great house, walled and guarded, deep and still in its own woodland, between the stone lions with their lifted wings and the mighty current of the tidal river! What he should do when he got there could be decided only by what he found. He had his revolver, and he scarcely knew whether to pray that he might, or that he might not, have need for it.
He remembered, tumbling over the wall from the inside, cascades of ivy, which he now hoped might give him a hand up the rough stone. But they tore away, one after the other, and sagged in his hold. He went on down the field, scouting in the darkness for some friendly tree; when he found one at last it was not so near the wall as he could have desired, and the first branch that seemed likely to bear him for any distance he judged to be about twenty feet above the ground. He crawled along this till its circumference seemed so slight he dared not trust another inch and peered into the pit. There was no way to make sure that the wall was there but to let go; he lowered himself the whole six feet of his length; let go; landed on the coping; by a miracle of balance maintained his equilibrium; and then, dropping cautiously to his knees, flattened himself along the edge. When you have dropped on to a wall which might or might not be there, it is nothing at all to drop on to the earth, which can not escape. He stood up, at last, within the Hoover grounds.
All was perfectly silent; the noise of his descent, which had seemed to crash like an earthquake, in reality had not waked a bird. He had now to make his way to the house through about a mile of perfect blackness; as a good beginning, he ran into a tree, and this rebuke of nature's seemed to put him in his place, and tell him to walk here like a spy, not like a combatant. He went on, but now with infinite caution.
This part of the ground was as little tended as a wild wood; then presently he came forth upon an old-fashioned garden, run wild, but still sending out sweet smells beneath his trampling feet; beds of white gillyflowers and fever-few and white banks of that odorous star-shaped bloom which opens to the night made a kind of paleness in the dark which perhaps he rather breathed and guessed than saw. It was an approach for a Romeo, and seemed to cast a kind of dream over his desperate and grimy business. He sped on to another little grove upon a rise of ground and coming to the top of the slope saw, far ahead of him through the trees, the shining of bright lights.
He could scarcely believe his eyes, for surely they would never dare to light the house. And then again he remembered how far and lonely that house stood, a mile and a half in from the road, and save through the lodge or from the river how hard to come at! If this was really their haunt it must have been so a long time; they must have grown used to it, like their own house. All the more chance, then, for his spying! Expectancy sprang higher. He kept on down the slope, this time at something of a reckless pace, and, at the bottom, plumped full into a pond.
The shock was horrid and without even the dignity of danger. He could easily have scrambled back but that, as he re-opened his eyes, he found himself gazing at a lantern, held up from across the pond. At that moment three shots flew past him, aimed at the bank he had so involuntarily and violently quitted. It seemed well to remain inconspicuous as might be; the bullets began to skip close to him, and, experimentally sinking, he found a fair depth and struck out under water for the opposite shore.
In the middle of the pond his hands touched a solid and terrifying obstruction. Heavens, what was this? Through what snares did he clumsily struggle to make his way? And in what nightmare? Involuntarily he came to the surface and found himself confronted by a high, overhanging shape, bulking featureless in the darkness and chilling him with a sort of superstitious despair. The more so that he seemed to be grasping something shaped like a foot; his hand climbed a vast, cold leg and the next moment he could have laughed aloud. He remembered, now, from his daylight forays, an ornamental wilderness of rocks and ferns, across which he had once glimpsed a stone lady; seated, and bending forward with a vase extended in her hand. The pond had been hidden by that wilderness; the vase had once been a playing fountain, and the lady herself sat on a rock in the middle of the waters. It was against this rock his hand had struck and it was her ankles which he thus ungallantly grasped. He hung to them a moment, resting in her shadow, and then with infinite precautions began to pull himself up those smooth, cold knees. She was very large and dense, a bulwark between him and the spitting bullets; he felt her rocky island beneath his feet, and gave himself, even with ardor, to her embraces.
The light upon the shore split in two and one-half of it began to skirt the pond at a brisk pace. He clambered across the stone lady's lap and crouched, kneeling, in the shadow of her arm. Thus sheltered, his first thought was for the priming of his revolver. It was soaked through! He could have cried out like a child! But already his breathing space was past.
The runner with the lantern had reached the spot where Herrick had plunged in and the surface of the pond was now raked with rays of light, crossing each other and striking perilously near his refuge so that they sought out at once the breast and the bent back of the stone lady. Herrick, as he blotted himself down the rock, observed that on the further side the pond was edged by a coping of rough stones rising, perhaps, two feet above the water and irregularly surmounted by small boulders—the beginning of the ornamental wilderness. He came up close against the wall; his fingers wedging themselves in a crack between the stones, and his head, shadowed by a boulder, half above the water. Thus, as he could hear and was not likely to be seen, he had every advantage of that dangerous neighborhood. And also time for a somewhat chill reflection. Suppose the life were not knocked out of him in the next five minutes, what use was there in going on with a useless pistol? It seemed even the outer grounds were being patroled or perhaps searched—he remembered the light shining from the house—it came in upon him that something unusual was going on, and that he might presently succeed in being either the victim or the witness of a climax. That thought was enough; his blood committed him beyond denial; and when the searchers, without having dropped a single significant remark, began scouting their own fears, and, accepting the surrounding silence as empty of intruders, turned back through the artificial wilderness toward the center of the estate, Herrick pulled himself out of the water and, sometimes on his hands and knees, sometimes upon his stomach, followed among the rocks.
The group with the lantern came out upon the carriage-way and paused. A horse and two-seated wagon awaited them, the horse's head turned toward the house; in the wagon sat Herrick's old friend, Mrs. Pascoe and the little old, old couple from the lodge. As the other men tumbled in the old lodge-keeper lifted up his voice: "I ain't slep' out o' the lodge, nor your ma ain't, either, in forty years!"
"Well, you'll have to to-night, pa," said Mrs. Pascoe. "An' there ain't any time to talk about it, either." She added, "You an' ma can come back when we're gone. Don't ferget M'ree's your great gran'niece by marriage. Have her visit yeh again." They were off and through the shrubbery; Herrick followed.
But the carriage-way was clear of everything save errant weeds and at an ordinary trot they very easily distanced him. After a while he ceased to hear the wheels, but now again he could see the house shine among the trees, and as he came closer still he listened for the sounds of their arrival but heard nothing.
It was extraordinary what a stillness had again fallen upon the night. No sound covered his approach, and when he came at last in view of the great entrance no wagon waited on the path nor did any voice challenge him from the doorway.
He stood among the trees and stared across the wide sweep of carriage-way. He saw on either side depths of lawn, kept cut and roughly trimmed, merging at last again into the darkness. The drive was bright from the great glowing portico, and from the entrance doors set wide into a stately hall; the hall was all in order as though for a reception, with rugs and palms and candelabra, and to its left a vast apartment like a ballroom flung from its long open windows, that crossed the left front of the house and shone far along the side, spaces of lamplight down the terraces. Save for one pane gleaming overhead, the rest of the house stood dark, as if unoccupied. But in that still yet quivering night, in that dense, black, vast but sultry silence, this made a great illumination, and that wing of the old mansion seemed to blaze like a palace in a wood; in the lack of sound or motion, it seemed swept, opened and made ready by enchantment, and waiting for the conqueror. It had indeed so great an air, so composed, so ordered, and of such stately openness that it seemed to rebuke suspicion; surely law and seemliness were on its side and not that of the dark, soiled, muddied, creeping figure that skulked, staring, in the shrubbery like a thief in the night; totally confounded, oppressed by every terror of the house-breaker and yet with empty hands. But the bright house, which should have threatened, invited him with every luster.
He was a fool, if you wish, but at least he knew his foolhardiness to the core. The wagon he had followed must have passed the house and gone on toward the river, but this bright vacancy and quiet had not been arranged for nothing. To go forward was most likely death; a death quite futile and unremarked, and scarcely a breathing-stage in the wild story whose blazed trail of ruin and murder he had already followed so far. Well, he had followed too far to go back. He was too near the goal; he was too near the turning of the page, and, as far as was mortally possible, he must read it.
The empty drive, the empty hall, the empty, shining windows drew him like wires, and, dropping back across the border of the drive to a far-lying depth of shadow, he crossed it like a ghost; taking advantage of every unclipped shrub and moldering urn, began to mount the terraces.
Thus at last he came to the long windows, and huddling at one side, peered in. He saw a proud interior, brilliant and pale, with panels of latticed glass, after the French fashion, and other panels frescoed with Pierrots and Columbines and with great clusters of wax candles set between the panels. There was a great chandelier with swinging prisms reflected in the floor that was waxed like satin; but this chandelier was not lighted, and indeed everything suggested that they had never dared to use any electricity, for which they would have to work the power-house on the estate. But the clustered candles and the many lamps made the place afloat with liquid gold, and the room trembled and bloomed with the scent and the beauty of hot-house flowers, so that the air seemed to shimmer with their sweetness. There was little enough furniture; a golden grand piano with Cupids painted on it; a few chairs from which Herrick guessed the holland had but lately been removed; and near the huge, rose-filled fireplace, a little table, gleaming with silver and linen, with lilies and crystal and lace. It was set for two; close at hand was a serving-table with silver covers showing on it, and, for a practical and modern touch, a chafing-dish! There was no one in the room.
But the table was hint enough. Here was the center of these preparations. Here two people were to meet, and Herrick thought he knew the hostess. In the departing wagon-load, there had been no beautiful tall figure with red hair. To this little private festivity Fate had led him through the rough magic of his scramble in the night; she pointed at the table with a very sure finger, and now all his vague expectancy was centered in a single question, and his first necessity was to behold the face of the red-haired woman's guest.
Now at the first glance he had taken this room for a sort of music-room which had been used, too, for informal dances. And sure enough, along one wall, just as though put there to tempt him to the final madness, ran a little gallery for the dance-music. It had a balustrade about it and within this balustrade hung short yellow brocaded curtains, in a sort of valance, that seemed to Herrick strangely fresh, as though hung there yesterday. And he determined if it should be his last move on earth to get behind those curtains.
There was no staircase to the balcony from within the room. He crept to the hall-door; the hall opened out square as a courtyard with doorways and arches upon every side. At the rear the great staircase, after perhaps a dozen steps, branched off to either hand, and on its left a little gallery ran along the wall behind that very room and led to a curtained niche. This would be the entrance to the musicians' balcony, and there was nothing for it but that Herrick should traverse the hall and mount the staircase. It was as if the house had turned to one great eye; he thanked heaven for the rugs upon the marble and for the scanty shelter of the palms; while with every step he took and every breath he drew the house-breaker dreaded to hear another footstep in his rear or to see an assailant rise before his eyes. But all remained vacant and was as silent as the tomb. Running up those marble steps, he came at one bound to the curtained niche, and, as he darted in between its hangings, he had a strong inclination to laugh; for, if there were any one within, it would be quaint to see whether he or they were the more startled! But there was no one there. He had now his private box for the coming entertainment. He dropped softly to the floor and, as he did so, some one in the room below struck a match.
It startled him like the crack of doom. He parted the little curtains of the valance, and beheld himself so far right that there stood the red-haired lady lighting the chafing-dish.
Herrick was not more than about nine feet above the flooring of the room, with the main door from the hall to his right hand and the fireplace on his left, so that the little glittering table was before him and to the left of him but a few feet. And there the red-haired woman blew out the flame she had kindled, as if she had but meant to test the wick. It was Herrick's first long clear look at her and he looked hard. The resemblance to Christina lay only in a very striking suggestion of the tall figure, a pose, a poise, an indescribable lightness and sense of life; they had the same gracious, gallant bearing, the same proud carriage of the head, and he suddenly realized that he was looking at one of Christina's gowns. For the rest, she was, of course, six years the elder, and her equal slenderness was much more richly hued and softly curved. Handsome enough, her face at once attracted and repelled by the diverse coloring of the eyes. It was a face at once selfish and fierce and soft, with the softness of a woman who is fashioned from head to foot in one ardent glow; a softness like a panther's. In the flame-white allure of sex she struck straight at you, as undisguised and challenging as lightning, and, to any but a monomaniac, as soon wearied of. It seemed that she could never be satisfied with her preparations. She walked about the room, touching and re-touching the flowers; over and over again she scrutinized the appointments of the table; lifted the silver covers; peered into the chafing-dish, and tested the champagne in its bucket of ice. At last she could find nothing more to do. Through all her coming and going, she had seemed to be mocking and triumphing to herself; humming, singing and even whistling very low with her mouth pursed into a confident and quizzing little smile, or inclining her bright head, in victorious scrutinies, from side to side; so that it seemed the guest must be very welcome and, if she were bent on conquest, the conquest very sure.
She was not yet gowned for a festival, and, remembering the light in the room above, Herrick, grim as the hour was, smiled to imagine that here was to be played a little domestic comedy like thousands that go on in Harlem flats and tame suburban cottages; the servantless hostess satisfied at length about her cooking and her table and flying upstairs at the last moment to dress for company. So indeed she turned to fly, but then her mood changed. She whirled round upon the vacant table, her comedy, her mockery quite fallen from her, and given way to a black hate. All her quick humors swarmed in her, in a threatening storm; she was not so much like a woman as like a great, bad, lovely, furious child that runs its tongue out in defiance. But there was a power in this defiance like the power in that soft panther of her grace. So that it was a sort of curse her swirling movement cast upon the pretty table as she flung one arm up and out above her head; the hand clinched, and then the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air. Then she went out of the room and up the stair and overhead.
Herrick, scarcely knowing what he did, rose to his knees! Just then, he thought he heard a slight noise behind him. As he turned, something struck him on the head; he fell millions of miles through a black horror stabbed with pain and forgot everything.
When he came to himself he was trussed up like a bundle, with arms and ankles tied too tight for comfort. He still lay on the floor of the musicians' gallery and the room below him was still lighted. He rolled over and again could look through the valance. Only a little time must have elapsed, for the room was still empty.
And with the sight of that emptiness, questions poured in upon him. Who had found him out? And for what fate was he reserved? How long did they mean to leave him here and why did they leave him here at all? Why had he not been finished and done with? There struck through him, with perhaps the first utter and broken fear of his life, the depth of the silence by which he was again surrounded. No breath, no stir; that intense stillness was vivid as a presence and positive like sound; he was alone in it; he lay there helpless; a bound fool and sacrifice in the bright house, in the middle of the wood and the depth of the night, and, if those chose who left him so, he must lie there till he died. He lurched up and sat quiet, waiting for the dreadful giddiness and nausea that came with movement to pass by; determined to struggle till he got to his knees and on his knees, if necessary, to attempt to pass out of that house. He knew it was impossible, but movement he must have. Then, through that density of silence, he heard a step upon the terrace.
His curiosity rushed back on him, like fire in a back-draft. He held his breath; the step was a man's; it crossed the threshold of the great door and sounded on the tiling of the hall. The next instant the guest of the red-haired woman was in the room under Herrick's eyes.
Removing a long driving ulster and a soft hat, he proved to be in full evening clothes, and expectancy, held firmly down, lay mute and rigid in every part of him. He lifted a face the color of tallow and, staring straight at Herrick's balcony with blank, black eyes, the visitor drew a quivering breath. This visitor was Cuyler Ten Euyck.
The sound of his entrance had evidently been remarked. Again there was a light footstep overhead, and Herrick guessed that enough time had elapsed for the toilet to have been completed. The hostess came forth at once, and could be heard slowly, and with great deliberation, descending the stairs. Ten Euyck did not go to meet her. Only his eyes traveled to the door and he stood stiff, with little swallowings in his throat. Herrick could hear, as she came into the room, a swish, a tinkle about her steps as though she walked through jeweled silk, and before her on the waxed and gleaming floor there floated a pool of additional brightness, so that he saw she had not been satisfied, after all, with the lighting of her supper-party, but carried a lamp to her own beauty as she came. Another step and there swam into his sight the beautiful, tall figure, carrying her lamp high, and incomparably more than before the mistress of that great apartment. This time it was Christina herself.