“‘Yes, you locked the door,’ he answered, as he broke into a subdued laugh. ‘I dropped from the window sill when it got dark—it wasn’t high, about fifteen feet, and the waterspout helped—ran down the back way, gave him a crack as he opened the door, and was back in bed by the help of the same spout before he had come to. He was leaving the next day and it was my only chance. I wasn’t out of the room five minutes—maybe less. You’ll forgive me that too, won’t you?’”
Marny stopped and looked into the smouldering coals. For a brief instant he did not speak. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room, took the miniature from the wall where he had hung it and looked at it steadily.
“What a delightful devil you were, Fiddles. And you were so human.”
“Is he living yet?” I asked.
“No, he died in Gretchen’s arms. I kept my promise, and two months later went back to the village to bring him to America with me, but a forester’s bullet had ended him. It was on the Baroness’s grounds, too. He wouldn’t halt and the guard fired. Think of killing such an adorable savage—and all because the blood of the primeval man boiled in his veins. Oh, it was damnable!”
“And you know nothing more about him? Where he came from?” The story had strangely moved me. “Were there no letters or notebooks? Nothing to show who he really was?”
“Only an empty envelope postmarked ‘Berlin.’ This had reached him the day before, and was sealed with a coat of arms in violet wax.”