"All right. If you'll just hurry—"
After an interminable time he ran up the steps of a dark ramshackle little house, and through the door, almost knocking over an immense negress who was walking, candle in hand, along the hall.
"Where's my wife?" he cried wildly.
"She gone to bed."
Up the stairs three at a time, down the creaking passage. The room was dark and silent, and with trembling fingers he struck a match. Two wide eyes looked up at him from a wretched ball of clothes on the bed.
"Ah, I knew you'd come," she murmured brokenly.
Anthony grew cold with anger.
"So it was just a plan to get me down here, get me in trouble!" he said. "God damn it, you've shouted 'wolf' once too often!"
She regarded him pitifully.
"I had to see you. I couldn't have lived. Oh, I had to see you—"