Jean clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Hush!" she implored. "You're mad!"
Amy tore herself free and dropped huddled to the floor.
"I'm not mad. I wish I were. They'd only lock me up, if I were mad. Now they'll kill me, too."
Jean shook her roughly.
"Stop!" she commanded. "Some one might overhear and believe you. Don't say such things. It's dangerous."
Amy threw back her head with a repetition of her awful laugh.
"You don't believe me!" she cried. "I'll make you believe me. Listen: He came home last night after you left. You hadn't been gone ten minutes when he came. He'd been drinking, but he was good-natured, and I thought I would speak to him myself. It didn't seem as if I could wait for you to speak to him, Jean. I thought I could manage it—he was so good-natured—and so I asked him to make me an honest woman. I never mentioned the baby—then! And I wasn't cross or mean with him. I asked him as nice as I knew how. But he wouldn't listen—it was the drink in him—and he struck me. Fred never struck me before in his life. He was always such a gentleman. It was the drink in him made him strike me. After that I went into the bedroom and cried, and I heard him go to the sideboard and pour out more whisky. He did it twice. By and by he came into the hall and took his hat, and I called to him and asked him not to go out again. I said I was sorry for bothering him; but he went out just the same. Then I followed. I knew, I don't know how, but I knew he was going to Stella's, and it didn't seem, after all I'd been through, I could stand for it. Sure enough, he turned down the avenue toward that flat of hers I told you about, with me after him keeping on the other side. I lagged behind a little when he reached Stella's street, for it was lighter by her door than on the avenue, and when I got around the corner he wasn't anywhere to be seen, and I knew for certain he'd gone in at her number. I'd been trembling all over up to then, but now I felt bold as a lion, I was so mad, and I marched straight up to the house myself. I decided I wouldn't ring her bell—it's just one of those common flat-houses without an elevator—but somebody else's, and then, after the catch was pulled, go up and take them by surprise.
"I was half running when I came to the steps, and before I could stop myself, or hide, or do anything, I banged right into Fred, who hadn't been able to get in at all and was coming away. His face was terrible when he saw who it was, but I wasn't afraid of him any more and told him he'd got to hear something now that would bring him to his senses, if anything could. He saw I meant business and said, 'Oh, well, spit it out!' But just then some people came along and walked close behind us all the way to the corner. The avenue was full of people, too, for the show at that little concert-hall near the park entrance was just over, so we crossed into the park to be by ourselves. We were quite a way in before I spoke, for I was thinking what to say, and finally when Fred said he wasn't going a step farther, I up and told him about the baby. He said that was a likely story and started to pull away, and then—then I took out the pistol. It was Fred's six-shooter; he'd kept it in the top bureau drawer ever since the last scare about burglars, and I caught it up when I followed him out. I didn't mean it for him. I only meant to shoot myself, if he wouldn't do right by me when he'd heard the truth. But he thought I wanted to kill him, and he grabbed hold of my arm to get it away. Then, somehow, all of a sudden it was done, and there he was lying across the path with his head in the grass. I don't know how long I stood there, or why I didn't kill myself. I ought to have shot myself right there. But I only stood, numb-like, till all at once I got frightened and began to run. I ran along by the lake and threw the revolver in the water, and went out of the park by another entrance and came back here. Nobody saw me go out; nobody saw me come in. The elevator boy goes home at twelve o'clock. I guess you believe me now, don't you?"
Jean froze before the horror of it. While she mechanically soothed the hapless creature who, her secret out, had relapsed into ungovernable hysteria wherein Fred's praises alternated with shuddering terror of the future, her own thoughts crowded in a disorder almost as chaotic. She faced a crime, and yet no crime. Must she bid Amy give herself up to the law? Must this frail girl undergo the torture of imprisonment and trial for having served as little more than the passive tool of circumstance? If they held their peace, the mystery might never be cleared. Would justice suffer greatly by such silence? But Amy would suffer! The fear of discovery—the fear Jean herself knew so well—would dog her to her grave. To trust the law was the frank course, but would the law—blind, clumsy, fallible Law whose heavy hand had all but spoiled her own life—would the law believe Amy had gone out, carrying a weapon, without intent to do murder? The dilemma was too cruel.