I went out and posted my letter. The streets were swept clean of their human refuse. Only a few belated vehicles trundled it out against the downpour, setting their polished roofs as shields against the myriad-pointed darts of the storm.
Feeling nervous and upset, I was approaching my own door, when a figure started from a dark angle of the wall close by and stood before me.
“Duke!” I cried.
He was drenched with rain and mud—his dark clothes splashed and saturated from boot to collar. His face in the drowned lamplight was white as wax, but his eyes burned in rings of shadow. I was shocked beyond expression at his dreadful appearance.
“What have you been doing with yourself?” I cried. “Duke! Come in, for pity’s sake, and rest, and let us talk.”
“With you?” he muttered, in a mad, grating voice. “With any Trender? I came to ask you where he’s in hiding—that’s all.”
“I know no more than you do.”
“You lie! You’re keeping his secret for him. What were her claims compared to family ties—devil’s ties—such as yours? You know, but you won’t give him up to me.”
“I don’t know.”
He raised and ground his hands together in exquisite passion.