Graylock spoke in a voice that had a ghostly sound in the great
room: "Don't harm her, Drene. It is not necessary. I shall never see
her again--if that will content you."
Drene laughed: "I never saw my wife again. Did that help me? I
never saw her again, but as long as she lived I knew what she was
. . . My wife. And when she died, still my wife. There was no
relief--no relief."
Graylock, deathly white, framed his haggard face between his hands
and stared at nothing: "I know," he said. "I understand now. I am here to-night to pay
the reckoning."
"You can't pay it."
"No, not the whole score. There's another bill, I suppose, waiting
for me--somewhere. But I can settle my indebtedness to you--"
"How?"
"That's up to you, Drene."
"How?" repeated Drene, violently.
Graylock made a slight gesture with his head toward Drene's sagging
pocket: "That way if you like. Or," he added, "There is a harder
punishment."
"What is it?"
"To give her up."
"Yes," said Drene, "that is harder. But I can make it even harder
than that. I can make it as hard for you as you made it for me. I
can let you live through it."
He laughed, fisted in his pocket, drew out the lumpy automatic and
leisurely pushed the lever to "safe."
He said: "To kill you would be like opening the cell door for a
lifer. You know what you are while you're alive; maybe you'd forget
if you were dead. I--"
He ceased, fiddling absently with the dull-colored weapon on his
knee; and for a while they remained silent, not looking at each
other. And when Drene spoke again he was still intent upon the
automatic.
"If I knew what happens after a man dies I could act intelligently."
He shot an ugly look at Graylock: "I don't know about you, either.
You're a rat. But you might fool me at that. You might be repentant.
And in that case you'd get away--if it's true that the eleventh hour
is not too late. . . . If it's true that Christ is merciful. . . .
So I'll take no chances of a getaway. You might fool me--one way or
another--if you were dead."
Graylock lifted his head from his hands: "I don't know how much of
the other debt I've already paid, Drene. But I've paid heavily since
I knew her--if that is any satisfaction to you. And since I knew she
cared for you, and when I realized that you meant to strike me
through her--I have paid, heavily. . . . Yet, if you were honestly
in love with her--"