He lifted his head. “Tell me,” he said.
She uttered a tiny moan.... It was all a dream. This moment had never existed. Or, if it had existed, she had stolen it from bitter fate to be detected instantly in the theft. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t.” She dared not even tell him why she could not, for that would be to tell the thing she must conceal. If he only could know—without knowing. If he only could know that she must act as she did; that her reason for seeming to be what she was was not a squalid reason, was not a reason which would have failed to move the loftiest soul.... If he could but have that knowledge; have it imparted to him by some mystic power!... But he could not.
He pushed her away from him. She was glad she could not see his face, could not be seared by its scorn nor wracked by its agony. He did not speak again, but began silently to creep through the window. She clung to him.
“Potter!” she sobbed. “Not this way! Don’t go this way!”
“Let go,” he said.
Her hands dropped to her sides and she stepped back. In an instant he was swinging above the ground, a swaying blot against the night; in another instant he was gone.... She closed the window and sank upon the seat, her body too frail to endure the crucifixion of her soul....
Potter stood for a moment beneath the window, then moved toward the front of the house, but paused abruptly, for steps approached on the driveway. He pressed himself against a clump of shrubbery and waited. Two men appeared, passed, vanished. The incident gripped Potter, tore his thoughts away from that room above him.... He had come for information; here was a fact. It was a suspicious fact to him that two men should slink down that driveway at two o’clock in the morning. Silently, craftily he followed. He saw them against the garage door, was near enough to hear their low voices.
“He’s gone to bed.”
“Not him. Said he’d wait up. This is the hour we always have to come. He hain’t takin’ no chances of bein’ seen with us.”
“Rap again.”