"I tell you I've got to have it out with that man!" protested the pitiably dazed but dogged combatant at her side.
"You can't, Jim!"
"But I've got to!"
"You can't—you can't," she moaned, "for he's dead!"
A sudden sickening fear crept through his aching bones, seeming to leave them fluid, like wax.
"You—you did it?" he asked unsteadily. The face he gazed into looked aged and worn and pallid in the dim half-light of the breaking morning. A sudden great pity for her tore at his heart.
"No," she cried fiercely. "No—not me!"
But she was still tugging insanely at his obdurate arm. "I tell you, Jim, you must hurry, or it will be too late!"
"Thank God!" he gasped, scarcely hearing her pleadings.
They were skirting three early delivery-wagons, waiting to unload at the supply door of the hotel. A boy passing in the street beyond was shrilly whistling "Tammany."