Daventry, though a studious, careful man, was a lion when aroused; he could shoot and shoot straight. And if the two should meet, there in that midnight black, it would be grim tragedy for one, or both—tragedy with none for witness save that pale girl new-risen from her couch of dreams, wide-eyed, her gaze fixed now in a sightless staring upon the black well of the night.
And then, as she shrank backward against the pillows, there came a thumping clatter, a thick, whispered oath, and a following silence that was more terrible than any sound.
He was coming now, around the foot-board, along the side of the bed. She felt rather than heard that fumbling, stealthy advance; the fingers feeling along the counterpane; the noiseless pad-pad of the feet deadened by the thick pile of the Kermanshah rug; in imagination she could almost see the face, flushed now, bemused with drink, the leering, parted mouth....
The scream, lodged in her throat now, seemed like a bird beating against bars; in a moment the silence would be ripped from end to end, as a sheet is ripped from point to point, with the tearing impact of that scream, rising heavenward with the first defiling touch of those groping fingers. Armitage’s face on that evening had been the face of a satyr, high-colored, the nose sharpened to a point of greed, the eyes in a wide, avid staring upon the perfect curve of her shoulders, her neck.
And she had encouraged him with by-play of hand and eye, speech in a low rich contralto dealing in double meanings that yet had no meaning; glance provocative plumbing the depths of his—for this.
And in that moment Rita Daventry knew fear; the primal fear of the woman whose very protection has become her peril—the peril of the abyss.
And it was then that she heard it, like a summons of doom; the sound of heavy footsteps from the room above.
The footsteps were coming down now; they beat hollowly against the iron treads of the staircase with rapid thunder.
Robert Daventry was coming, leaping downward, now to meet—the death that waited for him behind that closed door, or to deal it to the man who, somewhere in that smothering dark, crouched, automatic ready, waiting for the man who was coming—on the wings of death.