Persons Unknown Part 59

CHAPTER VII

THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT

The whole of Allegra's doc.u.ment was never made public. Before it was read even by those concerned they heard from Nancy how, when she had run from the window of the boathouse, it was Allegra who had reappeared there, she whose red hair Gumama had glimpsed through the smoke and she whom Alieni had found courage to shoot. Afterwards they got from Denny the story of his venture: how he had guessed that, on leaving the Tombs, he would, in his own person, be kept a prisoner by his Italian hosts till he was got out of the country; and how he had therefore persuaded Filippi Alieni to change places with him--Filippi to be carried to Allegra and he to receive at the meeting of the Camorra a message that would take him to Nicola, to the hiding of the Arm of Justice and to Nancy Cornish. What must forever sicken Denny to think of was that hour in the boathouse when Nancy might have yielded and taken the laudanum that Mrs. Pascoe had finally secured, before he could get to her.

Nancy's eyes were upon him, regarding him fixedly and strangely. With the vividness of his remembrance he broke off to question her. "How, at such a time, among such dangers, did you dare to throw it away?"

"Why, I had to! No matter what! I had to live till the last minute. The letter was gone. I was your life. I was the only one who knew!"

He dropped his face into her lap with a strange laugh. By and by, they turned to the story of Allegra.

That great donkey of a Ten Euyck wishes me to write this. He says it is for his protection, but I know well enough what it is for. It is a net to catch a peac.o.c.k--to whom he is welcome. He will never bray about me--this is two-edged; it would avenge me. It is a pity none will ever read it, for it is a good story and I should like every one to know about me. Then, too, sometimes, I almost think that when I am far away and sheltered with my friends, I will send word of it to high places for _his_ sake. For I shall be always in torment if they kill him. That is, if by then there shall be no Nancy Cornish. To send him, free, to the arms of another woman--no, that would be a little too much!

I am a remarkable girl. It has taken to crush me the same as to crush Napoleon--bad luck. My bad luck began when I was born, with the two colors of my eyes. Thus a mark was put upon me, keeping me always in holes and corners unless I would be known, and making most men, who love me by nature, growing in time to weary of my face. If it had not been for the blue eye and the brown, my mother would never have noticed, among the children in the park, the American baby with the fair down upon its head who, when she came to look at it, was made with a shaped face like mine, and who also had a brown eye and a blue. She would never have made friends with the nurse and learned how the child was named Allegra Hope, and how the rich Americans had been married but four months before it was born, and were to wait in Italy till it could be brought home a year younger than it was. This the nurse had picked up, not being supposed to speak much English. And then came the telegram to come home, somebody was dying. And at the same time the nurse was sick, and there was no one with whom to leave the child. And then the nurse brings forth her friend who has always showed so fond of the child, and there is rejoicing because she is American, and the English doctor says she is healthy and the child is left with her. It is treated well; it grows; it grows more and more like me, who am but one year the older, so that all laugh to see us, and I am more like that other mother than my own, showing in what cla.s.s it would have been just I should be born. And the old creature in America does not die, but hangs and hangs, and money is always sent for the baby, and by and by when it is three years old it catches the fever and it dies. And the English doctor is to write to the parents, but he does not write--he does an injury to one of the great clan of the Camorra and he writes no more. And I grow every day more beautiful, more strong, more strange to have sprung out of the mud, and the money keeps coming and coming; but that the dead one was fair in the head, and I am red like the sun, there is no great difference from what she might have been, and that she is dead and buried and the money spent and spent on me, is never told. But they there in America, thinking to be gone but a month at most, never said there was a daughter, so they know not how, now, one is to be produced.

So that when I am seven years old, comes the Hope man; he looks upon the child with the blue eye and the brown, and sighs his great breath on my hair, and takes me to the English school. But I come every summer to my own people, so that I have all that is best of both kinds, and grow to be so beautiful and have such fascination, that when there comes sometimes a Hope father or Hope mother to take me on a trip and be sorry for me, I laugh at their backs! The mother I do not like, and she does not like me. She is a fool, and she has, too, another child. It is a girl and it is said to be pretty; but the picture she carries with her resembles a pale, shapeless child with dull hair,--not like mine that burns men's hearts like fire! Moreover this child has things that I should have, more money, more fuss, she is more shown. I am proud to be what I am; my mother, who is scarcely more than a common servant, had the great luck to marry into the Camorra, and my brother Nicola at eighteen takes the oath, so I am not come alone from dull peasants and these cackling Yankees, but from free men, born to judge, born to strike, born to live wild and to satisfy their blood. But all the same, as to this brat, Christina, I am the elder sister and I should have all, _all_! I make up my mind to be even with her and to spoil what things she has. I hear how she is strange, and is a lonely child, and plays she has a sister to talk to, a little girl who lives in the looking-gla.s.s; and how it is a game of hers that when she is in a gown of pink the sister is in blue, and when they buy her a doll there is another for the sister, and a place set at the dolls' teas, and Christina talks for the two. Then I know she is a fool, like her mother.

When I am fifteen, and of the right age for pa.s.sion and to break men's hearts, my bad luck comes and breaks my own. It could not leave me with the poor to be like the poor, it raised me up so that my nose sniffed at sight of them, and then it brought me together with Alonzo Pasquale, the son of a millionaire. He was mad for me, and well he might be, and I liked him so well, being young and fanciful, that I gave him encouragement. I ran away from school with him and we would have been happy forever, he having so much to give me, but that he grew weary of my blue eye and my brown. He told me so, for he was a dog and a devil, and I took little Filippi Alieni, and married him! It was wise. It was as well to be married, and he was a gentleman, with money. All was done as a wise girl should do, and yet see how my luck pursued me!

His people cast him off, on my account, their own daughters being ugly; and Nicola, who has been the best of brothers to me, Nicola got him into the Camorra, where his gentlemanly manners would make him able to get, first, confidence, and then money, from the best.

Yet when I had been but three months married and was not yet sixteen, he gets himself caught. And in prison he tells, he betrays his comrades, so that he is released, and for this Nicola does not kill him. No, he keeps the secret of that disgrace, and s.h.i.+ps us to America, where I am to introduce my husband to the Hopes. All so well planned, and yet such luck!

One of those to whom he had confessed loses his place, and then, by blackmail, that he will give my husband's treachery to the Camorra, he gets from him all the money that he now has. So that I have to lose him quickly; to take the little, ah, so little! there is left, and slip away! I do not wish a Camorra knife in my back!

I am afraid to go to the Hopes, for there he will follow me, and he is a snivelling, watering thing to make a fuss and spoil all. So I ask for work to teach Italian, and I live for a little while as if I were quite commonplace. And so I meet with the great Jim.

Hail and farewell, my poor Jim! You were only twenty-three and you cared too much! You did so many things for me, you thought such things about me, and were of such a considerate politeness and care, it made me laugh! But you were a beautiful lover, and I would have loved you, if I could! I would have been glad to marry you, as you made me so weary begging of me. I was very happy with you; you gave more to me and I think you loved me better than any one. But you were very silly to believe me, and silly to leave me when you found me out! That little whimpering puppy came; and, since you left me, and he had a good hint from Nicola how to get money from an Italian family here, what was I to do? We did very well, for a while, besides the money the Hopes sent me--I told them I came here to escape impertinence and was teaching Italian--and then they lost their money and I wrote to them no more.

But Mrs. Hope, because of her sick conscience, was always trying, in sly ways, to find where I was. And it seems when her brat was come to fourteen years old it chanced upon my last letter and learned all.

Heavens, what a row it raised! And how I was written to and written to; and some letters being forwarded me that they had tried sending me to Italy, were all about how she cried for me, and pitied and loved me and rejoiced, and said, again and again: "Oh, mother, I have a sister! I have a sister!" "Bene!" I thought, "she sounds like a tiresome little minx; but at least it is a thing to know!"

So that by and by--when Filippi is clumsy again and goes to jail for four years, and they dare to put me there for two--when I come out I go to my sentimental miss, who is now more than sixteen and makes already a little money. Not a dollar has she made since but I have had the half of it. She has no frugality; she is all luxuries and caprices and always in debt; and for a while it seemed as if really she would be scarcely of any use at all. But it is strange how pale she is, and yet attracts and shoots onward! Since then I have found a letter about those two years when I was silent. She wrote it to Will Denny, who thought she did too much for me. Like this:

"As I grew up and understood, and saw what little girls can come to in a world like this, I thought here was I and where was she?--My elder sister, born in wedlock, born of my father and my mother, grown up among peasants, among hards.h.i.+ps, and if she had come to harm, lost, thrown away, forsaken and denied--for what? For any fault of hers? For a convention, a cowardice, done in obedience to the chatter of fools and in order to stand well with those that have no hearts! What can I think of my poor mother but that her weakness forsook and denied her child to please the world? What can I think of any shame or sorrow that touches Allegra but that this is what the world and her own family have made of her? Oh, Will, it came to be my madness to find her and to ask her forgiveness for being in her place. All that I am and have and ever shall be I stole from her, and only give her back again to repay what can never in this world be repaid!"

You see, she was a crazy girl from the beginning. As soon as ever I see her I know the thing to tell her is that I have been in prison for stealing--I do not tell her I am innocent; I tell her I was starving! It was funny to see her--I was like a saint to her! I think of all I can that is piteous and wild and of a great pride, broken, like a sick eagle! I tell her about Ingham, but all wrong and round the other way, and how he cannot marry me because I am without money or place, and leaves me, when I am eighteen, without a dollar and without a name. And how when that had come to a young girl I could not write. All, all because society had kept me from my place in life and, having turned me out, had locked me into jail because I could not starve.

Eh me, you should have seen her! She used herself like a maid to me, and a mother and a little lover, all in one. And I might have done very well with her, and the world would have been all for me to walk,--or this little running colt, she would have known the reason!--but for my bad luck. Nicola who would do better in this country with education wishes me to work with him. And how can I guess the growing brat will grow so far and high? So I am glad enough to make a little b.u.t.ter to my bread.

Try living once, three women, the Hope woman and Christina and me, off the salary of a girl younger than eighteen and you will see. But who would think that all the while this monkey girl was looking in the gla.s.s of my grace, to steal and steal and steal from me? And would steal once too often, for the moving-picture show, and gets herself into a corner!

That was, indeed, the justice of the G.o.ds.

All this time I have made Christina keep me secret. I have still the brown and the blue eye, to be noticed everywhere, and I do not want Filippi on my hands, nor yet Jim Ingham. And for all she begs me to know this Denny, whom she persists to tell about me, I think he has a look that is not simple--the look of a man who has been about, and may guess too much--and so I will not--I am too sensitive and proud, and cannot face a person in the world except my little sister, whom I love so much and who is all I have! Except, I want the poor, devoted, kind, good folk who brought me up! So when she is eighteen she begins to buy for me this farm and here she welcomes my mother and Nicola. Nicola has found out friends of ours and kinsfolk who have long run, among people of our nation in New York, a business called the Arm of Justice, and we work for that; I having the best ideas, but, alas, ever doomed to hide. And on the farm we live in innocence and peace, and conduct our business excellently, out of the way of those from whom we make a little money, and here comes at last the sick puppy, Filippi, not to be kept off, who can but sit quiet and lick his paws in the background, that Christina shall not know of him.

And then, it is the first year of Ten Euyck being coroner, and a man who has been paying us, unfortunately, dies, and Ten Euyck, nosing, nosing, he comes upon our trail. And he sees how we have had nothing to do with the death, only the man had no more to pay and so he killed himself. And Ten Euyck sends for me, and tells me he is sorry for me and he will not inform against me. He tells me of a young girl he knows in the highest of society, for whom a friend of his had so great a fancy he was ready to marry her, and I knew he was that friend. And the girl dare not but lead him on, but all the time she prefers some one else and is in trouble; and he tells me all he has found out and he says, "I would not tell this to you, if I did not think you grateful to me and too discreet to use it otherwise than as I wish, when you know liberty is in my hand!" So I know what I am to do, and the girl goes mad. And he pays me by and by, but not enough. But what can I do?

We are going mad, too, for money, for our bad luck is always there! That man who made Filippi pay has found us out, and exacts of us more and more. We are in terror of the law from Ten Euyck, who has let none see him but me, and not one strand to hold him by, and of the Camorra from this brute. We work hard, we run great danger, and we remain poor, so that if we lose Christina we have nothing but what we must make and pay away--and Christina engages herself to Ingham! Was it not enough to break the heart! What use is it to work, to struggle, to be beautiful, and to have nothing? And here is this silly girl, not worth my little finger, who has all!

Three times more I work for Ten Euyck, and that man Kane gets after us.

It is all the fault of Ten Euyck, who has made us conspicuous, and he knows Kane thinks there is something strange, and he loses his nerve. He comes always to the farm like a caller, when I have sent all away but me, for he will put nothing in writing, and he drives his own machine.

And one day he is raging against Ingham and Christina, and what he would give to know against them, any more than Ingham's dissipation, and I think "Maybe I can make something out of this!"

By and by I rejoice to hear that there is trouble with Jim Ingham. He is not the boy I found him. He has let himself go wild so long he cannot tame himself, all at once, and then he is exacting, like a fiend, and jealous and suspicious, not believing in himself, nor anything, nor anybody; and I laugh to myself, if she should know why! For were there nothing else at all, it would annoy me that chit should marry him! But I am pleased, and in that moment I let her bring out to me her Will Denny and her Nancy Cornish. And so I spoil my life and break my heart, and do not know myself with love.

I have come to be twenty-eight years old and nothing has counted. Then I meet him, and nothing else can count. I say to myself that I will have him, and I know it is not possible but I shall get him. But still he is all eyes and ears for a rag of a girl, who is so sick with love she knows not even how to charm. She knows nothing at all but to love him; and to love him nicely--so that she would not make him unhappy, even to hold him forever! It makes me ill to look at her, and still I cannot get him to look at me. But I can make him seem to look at me. I can make him ever with me, and amused by me, and of a manner a little sweet and tender to me--the poor sister of Christina, whom he can see to be dying on her feet for love of him. And the little rag of a girl sees how beautiful I am and full of life and far above her every way and fit for him, and knows no better than to grow pale and to keep out of the way, and to be silent and cold with him. And he begins to be hurt and not to follow her so hard, and then she finds me crying, crying. And at first I will not tell, but then I say how I must go away, because I love him. By and by I say that I would not have to go but I am afraid if I stay I will steal him from her. And at last, very reluctant, I show her a letter--for Nicola, who has done something in that line, too, was ever a good brother to me and taught and helped me well, so that it was in Will's hand. It said how he would never forsake Nancy, who loved him, for she could not live without him, but I was brave and strong and he must be so, too. It said how we were each other's mates, he and I, but met too late, and his heart would be mine forever, but he could never forsake nor pain his poor Nancy. Crack, she broke her engagement, the little fool! Who never had scarcely been able to understand how he should love her, as no more could I--and she shuts herself away from him, and will not answer and will tell him nothing! Only, she's changed her mind. And he says to Christina, "I am too old for her, and not so gay!" And I see him tear up the photographs she has sent back, and sneer at them, and say how G.o.d knows she could never have taken him for a beauty! And oh, I am so kind to him! I am so gentle and so sad, and I get new clothes and dress my hair, and always he can see me die of love.

And so there comes a day when he asks me if I would be afraid to take the pieces of our lives and see what we could make of them together.--Ah me! and to think it all had to be kept secret because I was still so proud and sad! For bethink you, there was Filippi!

I think at last what a fool I am not to have divorced Filippi long ago!

Here I am, betrothed to marry and it is all to do yet! Long ago, had I not been so soft-hearted, or had I thought of it, I might have been rid of fearing the spy who threatens him with the Camorra, in being rid of him. I wonder how much Filippi will take to set me free, and he makes a horrible fuss and will take nothing at all! But his spy is begun all fresh, killing him by inches with demands for five thousand dollars. And he asks also five thousand, now, not to report Nicola who has remained silent and a friend to us! It is all like a mad spider's web which but entangles more and more. And I think I will get that ten thousand from Ingham because I do not publish the story I have told Christina. Or else from Ten Euyck, because I do.

I send the Arm of Justice letter to Ingham's office that it may be forwarded to Europe. And then I hear from Christina that she cares for him no longer and has written him, and already he is coming back to argue with her. Oh, my luck, my bad luck! If he has lost her already, he will fight my lies! He will get my letter, too; he will connect that with her broken promise, he will ask her if she knows a girl with a brown eye and a blue, and what may he not guess and put into her head about my business? I am in despair, I have a fit of crazy rage, and I think, too, I will get ahead of him, so she will not listen to him. I say to her, "That man who ruined my life years ago, that was James Ingham!" I say to her, "I could not let it go on, dear sister. But don't let him know where I am." He comes straight to her, before he has my letter, and all she says to him is, "You have never known all these years that I had a sister." And then she tells him her sister's name, and he goes away.

But Nicola ever hopes that perhaps he will pay and at four o'clock watches his window for my ribbon. Then he sees go in Nancy Cornish, and he thinks that very queer and comes to tell me, who am round the corner in the car. We watch and see her come out, and turn east, and we follow her, and I see her going into the Park; a thing to drive me wild, for I know well she used to meet Will Denny in the Park. She came much, much too soon this time, but did not care. Till she saw me.

If she had not come so soon, if she had kept her mouth shut, how different all would be to-day! No! Out she came with it--Filippi has told her! He has told her we are married! She has telephoned to my betrothed, she is to tell him here! Filippi has done worse. He has said to her, "This I would not tell to every one. But if she should seek to injure you and get him back, say to her--What do you know of the Arm of Justice? She will let you alone, then!" With those words did she not seal her own fate? He must have got drunk on talk, Filippi,--not being used to be listened to--for he tells her that Nicola and I wrote that letter from Will I gave her to read. He gives this girl the address of my cousin, and says if Will comes there, directly, he will show him the papers of our marriage. Thus do these two little jealous, peeping fools spoil everything!

In the meanwhile Ingham has got my letter, and has guessed I wrote it.

And he calls up this girl, whom he knows to be Christina's dearest friend, and asks her, does she know Christina's sister? He tells her that though all is broken between Christina and him, there are things Christina must not believe, and perhaps there is something she must know. He asks when he can see this Cornish girl, and she tells him after rehearsal, but before five. She is very much excited, and she says how always in her own room girls run out and in and so she will come to him--She, mind you, the baby-girl! And there she tells him her tale and he tells her his, my letter for the money and all, and she gives him the address of my cousin, and there he has gone to find Filippi,--for she is not so crazy Will shall go!--while she is telling me what she thinks of me, softly, in a low voice, in the Park. I think how Will Denny is coming, and I make a little sign. And Nicola hits her once, and picks her up limp; I following with her hat, like a sister, in case we meet a policeman. And we lift her in the automobile and put up the hood, going fast as we dare. At my cousin's they have denied to know of Filippi. For Filippi, out of the window, saw it was not Will, but Ingham. And we take her in there. She comes to, before long, and all we can do with her is to take her out of town. Only I must leave her at my cousin's now, for I am to dine with Will before his rehearsal.

It seems to me that any person of a pitiful heart, who also admires courage and address, must be sorry for me, now. Here am I, born for love and to command and charm, tied to Filippi and to lowly life; having planned so wisely and dared so well, now with this rag of a girl on my hands, not knowing what to do with her; with the Camorra itself, all unconscious, closing ever in and in, by its offer to absorb our Arm of Justice; with the spite of Ingham on my heels and tattlers and spies on all sides, just when I need all my wit to win my love. For he has not had time to learn to love me as he would love me before long. He is very, very sweet to me, but he does not care. Just when he first turned to me there was one flash. I hope and I pray to all the saints, I plan and watch and make myself fair and think of all that can please him; I spend my days and nights to feed the fire; but it burns out. He is kind, he thinks he is to marry me, he is fond of me, because I am sad and so is he. But he is sick for that Cornish girl who is not worth one hair of my head, and I have no time to wait till his love grows. I think how I am to defend myself with him if Ingham talks; and when I get to the restaurant where we have a private room--I am so shy and so sensitive, lest people laugh at my queer eyes!--there I find he has met Christina on the street and carried her along to ask her does she know why Nancy did not come in the Park.

Well, I tell him. I tell him Ingham's name, as I have told it to Christina. And he does not like Ingham, whom he has seen fascinate Christina against her will, and whom he has heard of as a brute to women. And always Ingham has wished Christina to be less friends with him, and has done many little things in hate of him. So that he is all ready to believe what I say; how his Nancy was afraid to face him this long while, and meant to try this afternoon and failed; and how it is Ingham who has given her money to go away. I think it will make him hate her. I think it will make him not listen to Ingham. I do not know it will make him perfectly cold and perfectly still, not speaking a word--not even when Christina, for the first time in her whole life, is angry with me and tells me I deceive myself, I misunderstood Nancy, he does not speak.

He talks nicely about other things at dinner, but he does not go toward the theater afterwards. And when Christina asks him why not, he says he forgot something which he has at home. And she says to him, "You cannot go to Ingham now, you have a dress-rehearsal." And he says, "I have not forgotten that." So she takes me with her to Nancy's boarding-house, and there they who are busy and notice no better, say she has gone out to dinner, before the theater, with a Miss Grayce. And Christina goes home to see if she can get word to Ingham to keep out of Will's way and I go back to my cousin's table d'hote.

Now we have never said to Christina that we have a car. She cannot afford us one, however she tries, and we do not want her to know we have ever a dollar but from her. We sell a little from the farm, and she knows we send this in to market by a man with a truck, and she is willing to spend so much on her own fancies that she even arranges with him to bring her my flowers. But for us she buys a little wagon with two seats and a plug of a horse. She needs not to know everything and watch all our movements. So mostly we keep the car at the other place; and half the time I am there myself. If she comes visiting to the farm I can take the Cornish girl out there.

But I must first see Ingham and beg him to be merciful to me. And, indeed, he has loved me so much, I think he cannot resist to be a little kind. And I leave Nancy in the car with Nicola and the boys and with her mouth stopped, across the street from Ingham's house under the windows of that Herrick. So, without thought of fear, I enter. Afterward, when I read about the elevator boy, I remember I have on a favorite of Christina's dresses. For, naturally, of hers, I take what I choose.

Well, there is nothing to be done with Ingham--he is mean, mean through. He will give me up to the police. He has heard before of the Arm of Justice; he says that he will break it. And then I tell him he would better clear out, for I know Christina thinks that Will will kill him. And it is then Will rings and when he, grinning, welcomes Will in, he sees, and any one may see, that Will has his revolver in his hand.

But when Will finds me there he is stricken dumb. And Ingham laughs and says, "You wonder what this injured lady is doing here? Ask Nancy Cornis.h.!.+"

And Will cries out at him, not so very loud, but as a sword goes through the air, "Ask Nancy Cornis.h.!.+" and then, very low, "Do not imagine but that I shall ask Nancy Cornis.h.!.+ And you shall tell me where she is!"

Then Ingham says, "Well, if you didn't wish her to have done with you, my dear fellow, why did you throw her over for this married lady?"

Will never gets any further than to stand by that panel of wall, between the portieres and the door. He looks to me and not to Ingham, and it is the one time in my life when I can think of nothing to say. I talk on and on, but I say nothing. It is the fault of that Ingham who continues to laugh, and to play like an angel who is a devil, too.

I tell him that Filippi married me when I was an ignorant child, with poor people, for the sake of the Hopes' money; how he brought me to this country and deserted me and came back after I had thought I was free, and had made friends with Ingham because I was dest.i.tute and alone. And he does not speak. But he does not believe me. I fall down on my knees and tell him, before Ingham's face, how I love him, and only him; how there never was any other man who had my heart! How when I saw him I knew he was my life, and I was born anew in knowing him. I tell him how I fear to let him know I am married. But how I am trying all the time to get free, and how I would have been free before I married him; how not for years have I been a wife to Filippi who hangs upon us and will not work and does not care for me! And I take his hand and cover it with kisses and with tears, and I implore him not to leave me, I shall die if he leaves me! And I ask him if he himself has never in his life done wrong! And I swear if I lied to him it was for love for him! He knows that is true; he cannot look at me, and not know! And I throw myself down, before his feet.

He lifts me up by one shoulder, and he looks at me long and long; still kind but very cold and still, and what he says is, "Then was it a lie you told me about her--and this man?" He has not one thought of me, at all.

It throws me into a great rage. I spring up and round the table, and Jim, who has not ceased to play, laughs loud, and gives one crash of chords. It is his triumph and I could kill him for it. I am all one fire of hate that tosses in the wind, and I lift my arm and Herrick sees my shadow on the blind. But quick I put my hand over my mouth, petrified.

For at that moment there is a soft, quick knocking on the door and Christina's voice saying, "Let me in, both of you! Let me in!"

By good luck, she has come while I am silent. And I leap forward and catch my hat up off the table and fly behind the curtains. For I know I have lost Will. And if I lose her, too, I have nothing. And Ingham breaks into the march from "Faust," triumphing, and just then I see through the curtain crack on the little chair at Will's side his pistol that he has dropped. And I hear Ingham say, now all in fury, "Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and through?--" And the door opens. She had her key, Christina, that she had forgot to give him back. And she calls out, sharp, to Will. But she turns to Ingham and says, "I implore you, leave me with him a moment!"

And he swirls round to see where I have run. I s.n.a.t.c.h up Will's pistol and fire past him from behind the curtain into Ingham's heart. Will reaches back to catch my hand and shakes the pistol out of it. It has not taken one breath and his first thought is for Christina, yes, and for me, and he snaps off the light. There she stands in the doorway; the light in the hall on Ingham fallen back dead. And when she turns her eyes again, there is still no one there but Will. Will stoops for the pistol that still smokes and drops it loose in his pocket.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and through?--"]