“It’s a pity you didn’t telegraph an account of it. Your picture of it would have been better than Holyoke’s, even if you didn’t see the shooting.”
“But I did see it!”
Marlowe’s look became dazed. “What?” he said. “How? Where were you?”
“Upstairs—in the parlour. I was so fascinated that I forgot to be afraid. And a bullet came through the window.”
He made a gesture as if to catch her in his arms. Instead he took her hands and kissed them passionately.
“I never dreamed you would be actually in danger,” he said pleadingly. “I was heedless—I—heedless of you—you who are everything to me. Forgive me, dear.”
She leaned against the casement, her eyes fixed dreamily upon the sky, the moonlight making her face ethereal.
“Was I too abrupt?” he asked. “Have I offended in saying it again at this time?” His exaggerated, nervous anxiety struck him as absurd, for him, but he admitted that his unprecedented fear of what a woman might think of him was real.
“No,” she answered. “But—I must go. I’m very tired. And I’m beginning to feel queer and weak.” She put out her hand. “Good-night,” she said, her eyes down and her voice very low.
When she was in her room she half-staggered to the bed. “I’ll rest a moment before I undress,” she thought, and lay down. She did not awaken until broad daylight. She looked at her watch. “Ten minutes to twelve—almost noon!” she exclaimed. She had been asleep twelve hours. As she took a bath and dressed again, she was in high spirits. “It’s good to be alive,” she said to herself, “to be alive, to be young, to be free, to be loved, and to—to like it.”