There was another silence. Suddenly he turned on her, perplexed. "Bertha, what is wrong with you tonight?"
They were crossing a little park high up above the city whose lights lay, shimmering and misty, below. The stillness was obtrusive here. Not a leaf stirred. There was no one about. They might have been alone upon some tropic peak.
"I--can't tell you, Frank." Her tone of blended longing and despair caught at his heart.
Impetuously his arms went around her. "Dear," he said unsteadily. "Dear, I want you.... Oh, Bertha, I've waited so long! I don't care any more if you're rich ... I'm going to--you've got to promise...."
She tried to protest, to push him away; but Frank held her close. And, after a moment, like a tired child's, her head lay quiet on his shoulder; her arms stole round his neck; she began to weep softly.
The horror came at dawn.
Frank, startled from a late and restless slumber, thought that he was being shaken or attacked by some intruder. He sprang up, sleepily bewildered. The room rocked with a quick, sharp, jerking motion that was strangely terrifying. There was a dull indescribable rumbling, punctuated by a sound of falling things. A typewriter in one end of the room went over on the floor. A shaving mug danced on the shelf and fell. The windows rattled and a picture on the wall swayed drunkenly.
"Damn!" Frank rubbed his eyes. "An earthquake!"
He heard his mother's scream; his father's reassuring answer. Hurriedly he reached for his clothes. Downstairs he found his father endeavoring to calm the frightened servants, one of whom appeared to have hysterics. Presently his mother entered with the smelling salts. Soon the maid's unearthly laughter ceased.