He staggered across the room to the sideboard, opened the drawer, and the thing glistened in his hand.
Joan was as cold as ice. "I will be true," she whispered to herself. "I will be true. Martin, oh, Martin."
With a superhuman effort Gilbert caught hold of himself. The cold thing in his hand helped him to this. His mouth became firm again and his face gentle and tender. And he stood up with renewed dignity and the old strange look of exaltation. "I claim you then," he said. "I claim you, Joan. Here, on this earth, we have both made mistakes. I with Alice. You with Martin Gray. In the next life, whatever it may be, we will begin again together. I will teach you from the beginning. Death and the Great Emotion. It will be very beautiful. Shut your eyes, my sweet, and we will take the little step together." The thing glistened in his grasp.
And Joan shut her eyes with her hands to her breast. "I love you, Martin," she whispered. "I love you. I will wait until you come."
And Gilbert cried out, in a loud ringing voice, "Eternity, oh, God!" and raised his hand.
There was a crash, a ripping of window screen. Coatless, hatless, his shirt gaping at the neck, his deep chest heaving, Martin swept into the room like a storm, flung himself in front of Joan, staggered as the bullet hit him, cried out her name, crumpled into a heap at her feet.
And an instant later lay beneath the sweet burden of the girl whose call he had answered once again and to whom life broke like a glass ball at the sight of him and let her through into space.
V
"You may go in," said the doctor.
And Joan, whiter than a lily, rose from the corner in which she had been crouching through all the hours of the night and went to the doorway of the room to which Martin had been carried by the Nice Boy and Gilbert, the man who had been shocked back to sanity.