Sergius drew out the revolver slowly and carefully. Again the mist rose around him. But it was no longer white; it was scarlet.
There was a report. Anthony fell, without a word, a cry.
Then Sergius bent down, and listened to the silence of his friend's heart—the long silence of the man who intervened.
AFTER TO-MORROW
I
In his gilded cage, above the window-boxes that were full of white daisies, the canary chirped with a desultory vivacity. That was the only near sound that broke the silence in the drawing-room of No. 100 Mill Street, Knightsbridge, in which a man and a woman stood facing one another. Away, beyond his twittering voice, sang in the London streets the muffled voice of the season. The time was late afternoon, and rays of mellow light slanted into the pretty room, and touched its crowd of inanimate occupants with a radiance in which the motes danced merrily. The china faces of two goblins on the mantelpiece glowed with a grotesque meaning, and their yellow smiles seemed to call aloud on mirth; but the faces of the man and woman were pale, and their lips trembled, and did not smile.