“I say I wanted to see you,” the voice persisted; “it’s Edgar Crandall. You’ll take pleasure from what I’ve got to tell.”
The key slipped into its place and the bolt shot back.... Well, he was home. No other thought, no other consciousness, lingered in his mind; even the pain, the unsupportable white core of suffering in his brain, was dulled. He placed his foot upon the threshold, but the hand upon his shoulder arrested him:
“Greenstream’s going to have a bank,” the voice triumphantly declared; “it’s settled—part outside capital, part guaranteed right here. Paper shaving, robbery, finished ... lawful rate ... chance—”
It was no more to Gordon Makimmon than the crackling of the forest branches, no more than an inexplicable hindrance to a desired consummation.
“If it hadn’t been for you, what you did for me ... others ... new courage, example of bigness—Why! what’s the matter with you, Makimmon? That’s blood.”
Gordon made a tremendous effort of will, of grim concentration. He freed himself from the detaining hand. “Moment,” he pronounced. The single word was expelled as dryly, as lifelessly, as a projectile, from a throat insensate as the barrel of a gun. He vanished into the bitterly cold house.
The bare floors echoed to his plodding footsteps as he entered the bedroom beyond the dismantled chamber of the safe. A flickering desire to see led him to where, on the bureau, a lamp had been left. The chimney fell with a crash of splintering glass upon the floor, a match flared in his stiff fingers, and the unprotected wick burned with a choking, spectral blue light.
He saw, gazing at him from the black depths of the mirror above the bureau, a haggard face drained of all life, of all blood, with deep inky pools upon the eyes. A sudden emotion stirred in the chill immobility creeping upward through him.
“Lettice!” he cried in a voice as flat as a spent echo; “Lettice!”
He stumbled back, sinking.