“Yes—I have sad news—to give you.” She is fainting. Her lips tremble. She can hardly speak.
“He has been discovered!” she says. “His fraud is known—they have arrested him——”
“Would to heaven it was no worse. We have had accidents on the road. The train was nearly annihilated—a frightful catastrophe—”
“He is dead! Kinko is dead!”
The unhappy Zinca falls on to a chair—and to employ the imaginative phraseology of the Chinese—her tears roll down like rain on an autumn night. Never have I seen anything so lamentable. But it will not do to leave her in this state, poor girl! She is becoming unconscious. I do not know where I am. I take her hands. I repeat:
“Mademoiselle Zinca! Mademoiselle Zinca!”
Suddenly there is a great noise in front of the house. Shouts are heard. There is a tremendous to do, and amid the tumult I hear a voice.
Good Heavens! I cannot be mistaken. That is Kinko’s voice!
I recognize it. Am I in my right senses?
Zinca jumps up, springs to the window, opens it, and we look out.