"Oh. I said bitter things to him then. I seemed to see the child before my eyes, gasping as it did in those days when we starved before the fever came, and it maddened me. He bade me leave it in the Home if I could not care for it, and go away—to some other city—I would soon forget it if I were away, and it would be cared for by the District. I, its mother, would forget! He said that he would give me money to go away from Washington—a ticket to Chicago or the far West—no more. He had done all for me that he could—far more than many a man would do—it would have to end some time—and more like this. A ticket to go away and leave my child! This was his cure for all my wrongs!"
Margaret stooped over and took the sick girl's hand. At the sweet touch of sympathy Rosalie turned toward her, the words coming now fast and feverishly.
"Then—then—oh, madam, I have been a wicked woman! I did not mean to do it, but while he was speaking something in my brain seemed to burst. I saw strange things all jumbled up together in a flash—the lilacs in our yard at home, a wretched woman of the street with painted face—a baby left upon a mountain side to perish as I had read in my history the Spartans left them, and whirling everywhere before my eyes that cursed shining pistol worth so many loaves of bread!"
She stopped, overcome by the recital. There was not a sound but the tick of the clock on the mantel. They were all in the fatal office.
Said Richard De Jarnette with a white set face,
"Go on!"
"Then—I can't seem to remember anything clearly then except that I caught the pistol up and fired. I think he must have started up, for he fell—against me." She closed her eyes and a shudder ran through her. "Oh—h! I have seen his face so often in the night!"
"What happened then? Go on!" urged Richard, fearing that her strength might fail. "It was but a moment from the time that shot was fired before I was there. Where did you go?"
"The minute I fired the thought came to me of my own danger. I had not seemed to think of it before. And at that second I heard somebody trying to get in. I thought they were coming to get me. You know how things will come to you all in a flash. I remembered that there was a night latch on the door—that I could get out if they could not get in. In a second I had thrown the pistol on the floor and was in the hall with the door closed behind me."
"It was that I heard," breathed Margaret. "I thought I heard a door shut."