A lunge in his direction indicated that her demise might take place in Kincaid's arms, but a startled side-step saved him and she sank heavily upon the red plush sofa. Her teeth chattered with a touch of nervous chill and her skin looked mottled.
"She choked her! choked her almost to death! She'd a done it in a minute more only the hired girl broke her holt!"
"Who? What do you mean, Mrs. Terriberry?"
"Dr. Harpe! She choked Gussie Symes because Gussie wouldn't leave her home and go away with her! Did you ever hear such a thing!" She went on in disconnected gasps: "Crazy! Jealous! I don't know what—nobody does—and she's disappeared—they can't find her." Mrs. Terriberry's shudders made the sofa creak. "And her active in church work, which they say her langwudge was awful!"
But Essie Tisdale was listening to another step upon the stair and she trembled when she heard the steps hastening down the corridor.
Van Lennop saw only her as he came toward her with outstretched hands, speaking her name with the yearning tenderness with which he had spoken it to himself a hundred times—
"Essie—Essie Tisdale!"
He kissed her, and she yielded, as though there were no need for words between them.
"But my letter? My telegram? Why didn't you answer?"
Her eyes widened with astonishment.