“God damn you! Don’t you know Shep is dead — dead!”
The word seemed to release some spring inside her — sight came to her eyes, swift motion to her body — she sprang at Kells, her clawed hands outstretched.
He half rose to meet her, caught one of her wrists, swung her down beside him. The nails of her free hand caught the flesh of his cheek, ripped downward. He threw his right arm around her shoulders, imprisoned her wrists in his two hands, then he took her wrists tightly in his right hand, pressed her head down on her breast with his left. She was panting sharply, raggedly. Then she relaxed suddenly, went limp against his arm — her shoulders went back and forth rhythmically, limply — she was sobbing and there was no sound except sharp intake of breath.
Kells released her gradually, gently, stood up. He walked once to the other side of the room, back. His eyes were wide open and his mouth hung a little open, black against the green pallor of his face. He sank down beside her, put his arm again around her shoulders, spoke very quietly: “Florence. For the love of Mary! — when? — how?”
After a little while she whispered without raising her head: “When they were taking him to the Station — from a car — they don’t know who it was...”
Kells was staring over her shoulder at a flashing electric sign through the window. His eyes were glazed, cold — his mouth twitched a little. He sat like that a little while and then he took his arm from around her shoulders, picked up his hat and put it on, stood up. He stood looking down at her for perhaps a minute, motionlessly. Then he turned and went out of the room.
It was ten-fifty when the cab swung in to the curb in front of a bungalow on South Gramercy.
Fifty-eight turned around, said: “You’d better be wiping the blood off your face before you go in, Mister Kells.”
Kells mechanically put the fingers of his left hand up to his cheek, took them away wet, sticky. He took out a handkerchief and pressed it against his cheek, got out of the cab and went toward the dark house.
After he had rung the bell four or five times, a light was switched on upstairs, he heard someone coming down. The lower part of the house remained dark, but a light above him — in the ceiling of the porch — snapped on. He stood with his chin on his chest, his hat pulled down over his eyes, watching the bottom of the door.