Freed from the nightmare of doubt, with a cry she ran forward. She saw Peabody, his back against a wall, a levelled automatic in his hand; her brother at the entrance to a tunnel like the one from which she had just appeared. His arms were raised above his head. At his feet lay a revolver. For an instant, with disbelief, he stared at Monica, and then, as though assured that it was she, his eyes dilated. In them were fear and horror. So genuine was the agony in the face of the counterfeiter that Everett, who had followed, turned his own away. But the eyes of the brother and sister remained fixed upon each other, hers, appealingly; his, with despair. He tried to speak, but the words did not come. When he did break the silence his tone was singularly wistful, most tenderly kind.
"Did you hear?" he asked.
Monica slowly bowed her head. With the same note of gentleness her brother persisted:
"Did you understand?"
Between them stretched the cobweb of strings hung with yellow certificates; each calling for five hundred dollars, payable in gold. Stirred by the night air from the open tunnels, they fluttered and flaunted.
Against the sight of them, Monica closed her eyes. Heavily, as though with a great physical effort, again she bowed her head.
The eyes of her brother searched about him wildly. They rested on the mouth of the tunnel.
With his lowered arm he pointed.
"Who is that?" he cried.
Instinctively the others turned.