The smile, which began hopefully, grew old while he watched it, and withered away. The noise that echoed in the hall was of a banging door, then of laden, dragging steps. The hall door was thrown open, and two snowy hackmen entered, holding up between them a man wearing a tall hat.
“He's some loaded, ma'am,” said one of them cheerfully. “I ain't seen him so chucked in six months.”
They dropped him in a chair, from which, after looking about him with half-open, glassy eyes, and closing them again, he slid limply to the floor. The hackman regarded that choice of position with sympathy.
“Wants to rest his load, he does,” and backed out of the door with his companion.
“It goes on the bill. Ain't seen him so chucked in six months.”
The lady had not moved from her chair, but had sat white and still, looking down into her lap. She gave a hard little laugh.
“Isn't it nice he's so 'chucked'? He would have acted dreadfully.” She was leaning on the table now, her dark eyes reading him intently. The man on the floor snorted and gurgled in his sleep.
“I couldn't kill anybody,” she said. “Could you?”
Noel shook his head.
“It's so funny,” she went on in a soft, speculative way, “one can't do it. I'm afraid to go away and be alone and poor. I wish he would die.”