There were but two contingencies. If Craig recovered sufficient consciousness to speak the name that had fainted on his lips when they two had been face to face in that room of hurried surgery—then his incognito would fall and fate must have its way. If Craig died without recovering consciousness—this, provided his own identity was not discovered, was the one way out for Echo.
For him it meant, probably, the last risk. He had now to meet no mere assumption of guilt, but an accusation, direct and unqualified, made under oath, in what might well be the hour of death. He could not offer in rebuttal evidence of character, reputation and standing. He was deliberately refusing to call his only witness to the fact. Yet he did not waver. The Harry Sevier who under the stress of impulse had acted so swiftly to save the woman he loved, elected the same choice now.
He would do it. Whatever the risk, whatever the ultimate cost to him, he would do it!
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BROKEN PICTURE
"Hyuh yo' is, honey, smack-dab on time!" called 'Lige's cheery voice, as he took Echo's bag. "Yo' fo'got ter say which train yo' comin' back on yistiddy, so ah ben waitin' wid dee cya'age fo dee las' fo'. Ah was figuratin' on yo' gittin' hyuh fo' dinnah, sho'."
As they bowled along toward home Echo wondered if she could really be the same girl who had driven away the day before along those self-same streets! The strenuous events through which she had passed seemed the terrifying creation of a dream, a nightmarish panorama of the sick imagination, so wild and incredible all appeared in the serene light of this day: The painful scene in Craig's library that had ended in swift tragedy, with the apparition between the portières of that baleful face—with its narrow eyes and upthrust of nondescript hair it had stamped itself ineffacably upon her memory!—the deafening shot and the after confusion—those breathless moments when she had run along the wet path, with a sense of flashing lights and alarm behind her—her safe emergence into the demure street, where she dared not run, compelling herself to walk albeit ready to faint with fear at sight of a patrolling policeman—the ghastly delay in the stuffy waiting-room of the station where she had checked her bag on arrival—the suffocating relief when at last the express pulled out, bearing her away unchallenged.
Through the long night she had tossed feverishly in her berth, without undressing, at intervals feeling the meaning of the catastrophe in which she had figured surge over her in a flood. That catastrophe itself had saved her from one horror: but for it she would now be the wife of Cameron Craig—a thought that made her shiver. Now she was safe! In all that trip, fortunately, she had encountered no one she knew. She had seen but one servant at the house and in his presence had worn a light veil. Only Craig had known who she was! What if she had been taken—held as a witness? How could she have explained her presence except by the letters for whose suppression she had been ready to give her life's happiness? As in imagination she saw her father and herself pictured in the yellow press, the centre of gossip and humiliating notoriety, she hugged the letters to her breast with intensest gratitude toward the desperado who had extricated her from the instant crisis. With what swift self-possession he had acted for her safety! That in that lightning-like emergency he should have even thought of the letters filled her with astonishment. Over and over again she tried to picture his face behind the mask, as his hand had held out the packet to her. Her senses had been shocked keenly alive at the moment: she had even noted—as in tense crises one notes inconsequent trifles—the ring on his finger with its curious, square green stone. A thousand times she lost herself in wonder that a man capable of such a deed to an unknown woman could yet be a common burglar, one of the desperate gang whose leader was now awaiting trial, and whose malignant face and levelled pistol haunted her. Then the shuddering thought would roll over her that she, Echo Allen, had witnessed the awful act of murder, and she would hide her face in her pillow, trembling and spent. Dawn had long been whitening the windows when the strained nerves relaxed and the body, fatigued by two sleepless nights, found fitful rest.
The sun had been high when she awoke and by the time she had made her toilette and drunk a cup of coffee she had reached the little station for which she had ostensibly started the preceding day. A rambling hack had taken her to the home of her aunt—a recluse who had for a dozen years regarded the outer world through the blurred medium of semi-invalidism, absorbed in her languid reading and her flowers. On arrival Echo had found the frail figure lying out among her roses, with white, wild butterflies flaunting about her, stronger than she had been for months past, and free from the querulous humours which generally held her. So keen was her delight in her betterment that Echo had found it easy to accomplish her own departure after luncheon, though she generally stayed the night. There was for the present, therefore, no added absence to be accounted for, and the lapse of time might never have to be explained.