Awaking suddenly, as one who is sleeping on guard often will, Constance had felt an instinct that something was wrong. The turning on of the electric light revealed that Loretta's bed was empty. Where had she gone? It seemed improbable that she had sought to escape from the house at that hour. Puzzled, she stepped into the hall and half-way down the staircase. There as she paused the light shining from under Mrs. Wilson's apartment on the landing below caught her eye. The next moment she heard a muffled scream.
It had required all her strength and weight to tear Loretta from her victim. Having succeeded in separating them, Constance hastily put herself on the defensive, expecting a fresh attack; but Loretta, panting from her exertions, stood facing them for a moment, then burst into a strident, gleeful laugh.
"You've saved her," she cried. "I'm crazy—stark crazy, I guess. What was it I said? I was going to take her where she'd have to scrub dirty marble floors forever and ever. I'd like to save her soul, she tried so hard to save mine. But it was time thrown away from the start. I was born bad—a moral pervert, as the doctors call it. Christianity was wasted on me."
She shook her head, and looked from one to the other. They, horrified but spellbound, waited, uncertain what course to pursue. Mrs. Wilson, now that she had partially recovered her poise, felt the impulse to elucidate this horrifying mystery. But though she wished to speak, the proper language did not suggest itself. How could one discuss causes with a mad woman? She raised her hands to put in place the tiara which had been crushed down on her brow.
"Look at her," cried Loretta, commandingly, addressing Constance and pointing. "Isn't she beautiful? She's civilization." She made a low obeisance. "I was in love with her once; I love her still. You saved her."
She frowned and passed her hand across her forehead as though to clear her brain. Then she laughed again; she had recovered her clew.
"You were the sort she could help, Constance Stuart; you were good. But how has she—her church—paid you back? Cheated you with a gold brick. Ha! Made you believe that it was your Christian duty to let Gordon Perry, Esq., Counsellor-at-Law, go. That's the way the aristocrats still try to fool the common people. But isn't she beautiful? My compliments to both of you."
She swept a low courtesy in exaggeration of those she had witnessed a few hours earlier. "It is pitiful—pitiful and perplexing," murmured Mrs. Wilson in agonized dismay.
For a moment Loretta stood irresolute, then of a sudden she began to shiver like one seized with an ague. She regarded them distractedly with staring eyes, and throwing up her hands, fell forward on her face in convulsive delirium. Constance rushed to her side; the two women raised her and laid her on the bed. Mrs. Wilson's maid was aroused, and a physician communicated with by telephone. He came within an hour and prescribed the necessary treatment. He said that the patient's system was saturated with cocaine, but intimated that she would probably recover from this attack.
After the doctor had gone and Loretta had been removed to her own room, Mrs. Wilson and Constance watched by the side of the sufferer, whose low moaning was the sole disturber of the stillness of the breaking dawn. Each was lost in her own secret thoughts. The cruel finger-marks on Mrs. Wilson's neck burned painfully, but the words of her mad critic had seared her soul. For the moment social truth seemed sadly remote. She reflected mournfully but humbly that ever and anon proud man and his systems are held up to derision by the silent forces of nature. When the darkness had faded so that they could discern each other's faces, she arose, and sitting down beside Constance on the sofa drew her toward her and kissed her. Was it in acknowledgment that she had saved her life, or as a symbol of a broader faith?