It was then that I decided to interfere. To do so seemed only my plain and decent duty. Yet I hesitated for a moment, pondering just how to phrase my opening speech to him.
Even as I took a sudden, deeper breath of resolution, and was on the point of crossing to his side, I saw him fling the revolver vehemently from him. It went glimmering and tumbling along the coppery-green grass. It lay there, a point of high light against the darkness of the turf.
Then I looked back to the stranger, and saw his empty hands go up to his face. It was a quiet and yet a tragic gesture of utter misery. Each palm was pressed in on the corded cheek-bones, with the finger-ends hard against the eyeballs, as though that futile pressure could crush away all inner and all outer vision.
Then I turned back toward the fallen revolver. As I did so I noticed a figure in black step quietly out and pick up the firearm. It was the white-faced girl who had sat looking up at the stars. Before I fully realized the meaning of her movement, she slipped the weapon out of sight, and passed silently on down the winding asphalt walk, between the rows of sleepers, toward the east. There was something arresting in the thin young figure, something vaguely purposeful and appealing in the poise of the half-veiled head.
I vacillated for a moment, undecided as to which to approach. But a second glance at the man in the velour hat, crouched there in his utter and impassive misery, caused me to cross over to him.
I put a hand on his flaccid shoulder, and shook it. He did not move at first, so I shook him again. Then he directed a slow and resentful glance at me.
"I want to have a talk with you," I began, puzzled as to how to proceed. He did not answer me.
"I want to help you if I can," I explained, as I still let my hand rest on his shoulder.
"Oh, go 'way!" he ejaculated, in utter listlessness, shaking my hand from his shoulder.
"No, I won't!" I quite firmly informed him. He shrank back and moved away. Then he turned on me with a resentment that was volcanic.