But John Rawn hesitated at this door. He felt, rather than knew, believed rather than was advised, that his wife was beyond that door. He waited, apprehensive, but kept up with himself the pitiful pretense of self-deception. Ah, power, control, command!—those were the great things of the world, he reasoned. True, he knew his daughter lay dead in her room on the floor above—the paper he held in his hand told him that; for at last the doctor had prepared his statement regarding Mrs. Halsey's death by "heart failure"—the rich and all akin to them always die respectably, in a house so large as Graystone Hall. But it was too late to save her, Rawn reasoned. Let the dead bury the dead. The larger things must outweigh the small. He first must know what his wife had done with Halsey.
To the tense, strained nerves of John Rawn the truth was now as apparent as it had been to the sensibilities of all these others, late friends, servants, sycophants. Ruin was here, in his citadel, his castle of pride. Only one thing could save him.... He hesitated at the door, held back from that which he knew he was about to face.... But no, he reasoned, she was there alone, he must see her!
He flung open the folding doors and stood holding them apart.
V
Yes, she was there! John Rawn's face drew into a ghastly smile. Yes, she had won! She, the wonderful woman, had triumphed as he had planned for her to triumph. She had won! ...
They stood before him, those two, silent, face to face, embraced; their arms about each other even as he flung wide the door. They turned to him now, stupefied, so weary, so overstrained, that their arms still hung, embraced. The face of each was white, desolate, unhappy; more hopeless and desperate than terrified, but horrible. They were lovers. They loved, but what could love do for them, so late? They had paid—but what right had they to love, so late?
John Rawn, the man who had wrought all this, stood and gazed, ghastly, smiling distortedly, at his wife's face. Why, then, should she be unhappy? What was to be lost save that which he, John Rawn, was losing—or had been about to lose?
But he was startled, stupefied, himself, for one moment. He turned back, hesitating; and so tiptoed away, leaving them, although the joint knowledge of all was obvious. They had not spoken a word, had not started apart, had only gazed at him like dead persons, white, silent, motionless—not lovers; no, not lovers.
For one-half instant, alone in the wide and darkened hall, Rawn straightened himself up, threw his chest out. Yes, she had won—she had done her task! She held Charles Halsey fast—there—in her embrace. He, John Rawn, multimillionaire, collector of rare objects, one of God's anointed rich, had the shrewdest wife the world had ever seen, the most beautiful, the most successful!
Had he not seen—was it not there before his eyes? She had his one enemy netted, in her power—there—had he not seen? She brought him, bound hand and foot, to him, John Rawn! Could a man doubt his eyes? They had hunted well in couple, he and his wife, and now she had pulled down their latest victim! ...