She entered the park, forcing her failing strength to one supreme effort, and sank, gasping, upon a bench. It faced toward the darkened residence of the murdered man. A few stragglers stood grouped on the pavement before the house, of asked questions of the policeman stationed near by. The electric lights threw lace patterns that wavered over the unfrequented paths. She leaned back, staring at the dark bulk of the mansion with the darker streak at the doorway, which one divined to be the sinister mark of death. Suddenly she sat erect, her aching weariness forgotten. She knew, past peradventure, that she had sat there upon that very seat the night before. The memory was but a flash. Already delirium was returning. She was powerless to move. Hours passed, and still she sat staring, unseeing, straight before her. Once a policeman passed and turned to look at her, but her evident refinement quieted his suspicions, and he moved on.
She was roused at last by a movement of the bench as someone took a place beside her. She looked up and vaguely realized that it was a woman, darkly dressed and heavily veiled like herself. She, too, leaned back and seemed lost in contemplation of the house opposite. Presently she raised the veil, as if it obstructed her vision too greatly, revealing a withered face, narrow and long, with a singularly white skin. She had the look of a respectable working woman, and her black-gloved hands were folded over a neat paper package. Her curious glance turned toward the lady beside her, and seemed to find satisfaction in the elegance that even the darkness could not quite conceal. She moved nearer, and with a birdlike twist of the head, leaned forward and frankly gazed in her companion's face. The other did not resent the action.
The woman slowly nodded her head. "Don't know what she's doin', not she. She's one of the silly kind." She put out a hand like a claw, and touched Mrs. Marteen's shoulder. Mrs. Marteen turned her flushed and troubled face toward the woman with something akin to intelligence in her eyes. "What are you settin' here fur, lady?" asked the woman harshly. "Watchin' his house? Well, it's no use; he won't come out again for you or your likes--never again, never again," and she chuckled.
"I was here last night. I sat here last night," said Mrs. Marteen, her mind reverting to its last conscious moment.
The woman peered at her closely, striving to see through the meshes of the veil where the electric light touched her cheek.
"You did? What fur? Was he comin' out to ye, or did ye want to be let inside?"
The insult was lost on the sufferer.
The woman shifted her position, and changed her tone to one of cunning ingratiation.
"Goin' to the funeral?" she inquired, and without waiting for an answer, continued to talk. "I am. I won't be asked, of course--they don't know I'm here; but I'm goin'. I wouldn't miss it--no, not for--nothing. I ought to have some crape, I know, but I don't see's I can. It would be the right thing, though. I'll ride in a carriage," she boasted. "I suppose they'll have black horses. I haven't seen anything back where I come from, so's I'd know just what is the fashionable thing. It'll be a fashionable funeral, won't it? He's a great big man, he is. Everybody knows him--and everybody don't know him; but I do--he's a devil I And women love him, always did love him, the fools! Why, I used to love him. You wouldn't think that now, would you? Well, I did." She laughed a broken cackle, and seemed surprised that her listener remained mute. "Did you love him?" demanded the crone sneeringly.
"Love him--love him?" exclaimed Mrs. Marteen, her emotions responding where her mind was unreceptive. "I hated him--I hated him!"