CHAPTER 18
Borne on pulsing electric waves, the news of the great dénoûement flashed over the city, and across a startled continent. Beneath the seas it sped, and into court and hovel. Madrid gasped; Seville panted; and old Padre Rafaél de Rincón raised his hoary head and cackled shrilly.
To the seething court room came flying reporters and news gatherers, who threw themselves despairingly against the closed portals. Within, the bailiffs fought with the excited crowd, and held the doors against the panic without.
Over the prostrate form of Ames the physicians worked with feverish energy, but shook their heads.
In the adjoining ante-room, whither she had been half carried, half dragged by Hitt when Ames fell, sat Carmen, clasped in the Beaubien’s arms, stunned, bewildered, and speechless. Hitt stood guard at the door; and Miss Wall and Jude tiptoed about with bated breath, unable to take their eyes from the girl.
In the court room without, Haynerd held the little locket, and plied Monsignor Lafelle with his incoherent questions. The excited editor’s brain was afire; but of one thing he was well assured, the Express would bring out an extra that night that would scoop its rivals clean to the bone!
In a few minutes the bailiffs fought the mob back from the doors and admitted a man, a photographer, who had been sent out to procure chemicals in the hope that the portrait of the man in the locket might be cleaned. Ten minutes later the features of J. Wilton Ames stood forth clearly beside those of the wife of his youth. The picture showed him younger in appearance, to be sure, but the likeness was unmistakable.
“Lord! Lord! Monsignor, but you are slow! Come to the point quickly! We must go to press within an hour!” wailed Haynerd, shaking the churchman’s arm in his excitement.