Suddenly she started, and seemed to listen. Then, with a swift,
stealthy movement, she slipped from before the door, and I
noticed that she hid one hand behind her.
"Charmian!"
The woman crouched back against the wall, with her eyes towards
the door, and always her right hand was hidden in the folds of
her petticoat. So we remained, she watching the door, and I,
her.
"Charmian!"
The voice was very near now, and, almost immediately after, there
came a loud "view hallo," and a heavy fist pounded upon the door.
"Oh, Charmian, you're there--yes, yes--inside--I know you are. I
swore you should never escape me, and you sha'n't--by God!" A
hand fumbled upon the latch, the door swung open, and a man
entered. As he did so I leapt forward, and caught the woman's
wrist. There was a blinding flash, a loud report, and a bullet
buried itself somewhere in the rafters overhead. With a strange,
repressed cry, she turned upon me so fiercely that I fell back
before her.
The newcomer, meantime, had closed the door, latching it very
carefully, and now, standing before it, folded his arms, staring
at her with bent head. He was a very tall man, with a rain-sodden,
bell-crowned hat crushed low upon his brows, and wrapped in a long,
many-caged overcoat, the skirts of which were woefully mired and
torn. All at once he laughed, very softly and musically.
"So, you would have killed me, would you, Charmian--shot me--like
a dog?" His tone was soft as his laugh and equally musical, and
yet neither was good to hear. "So you thought you had lost me,
did you, when you gave me the slip, a while ago? Lose me?
Escape me? Why, I tell you, I would search for you day and
night--hunt the world over until I found you, Charmian--until I
found you," said he, nodding his head and speaking almost in a
whisper. "I would, by God!"
The woman neither moved nor uttered a word, only her breath came
thick and fast, and her eyes gleamed in the shadow of her hair.
They stood facing each other, like two adversaries, each
measuring the other's strength, without appearing to be conscious
of my presence; indeed, the man had not so much as looked toward
me even when I had struck up the pistol.
Now, with every minute I was becoming more curious to see this
man's face, hidden as it was in the shadow of his dripping hat
brim. Yet the fire had burned low.
"You always were a spitfire, weren't you, Charmian?" he went on
in the same gentle voice; "hot, and fierce, and proud--the flame
beneath the ice--I knew that, and loved you the better for it;
and so I determined to win you, Charmian--to win you whether you
would or no. And--you are so strong--so tall, and glorious, and
strong, Charmian!"