The color rushed into Herrick's face. But he could not speak and Mrs. Deutch went on. "I asked her not one thing more. I held her and tried to give her comfort, and at first she clung to me. She did not cry, but by and by she would sit alone, waiting, listening, and her nostrils made themselves large. But at last it was only my husband who came, and Christina flew up and looked at him. And her eyes were big and wild with questions, but still speak she would not. But my husband's face, Mr. Herrick, it was the face of him who has been struck, who has been stabbed. Not then nor now do I know why that look he has. But it is not gone, it grows worse. He said only to Christina, looking straight at her, 'You left your scarf!' and his voice had in it a sound that was hard. She looked at him a long time, and she said, 'Very well, then. I shall know what to do!' At that moment, see you, she said to herself, 'Me they will suspect, and not him!' And oh, my brave heart, her mind she made up: 'So be it!' We kept her there till just before dawn. And then, because of her white lace dress, we put upon her my old black coat and hat, and both of us went home with her that she might be the less looked at. She let herself in, and all the rest you know. Only—"
"Only that Deutch knows something more!"
"And in all our life the one with the other, it is to me the one thing he has not told. He is not a secret man. Mr. Herrick, here is what makes my heart heavy. This thing—it is something not good for our little girl or he would have told it long ago! But to-day when she vanishes like that other girl who was her friend, he tells it to the mother of Christina!"
So, that was why! Herrick rose. No hour seemed too late, no scene too strange. "Mrs. Hope will have to tell me!" he said.
Henrietta Deutch rose, too, and put her hands on his two shoulders, as if at once to comfort and control. She said, "She is not here!"
"Not where?"
"Not in New York. She is gone. She has fled away that she need not tell at all. A train to some other city where there are boats for Europe—he says it is best I know no more. He has gone West somewhere. You see, he must have thought Christina, too, has fled. And what he told her mother, it has made them not dare to stay. My poor boy!" said Mrs. Deutch, tightening her hold of Herrick, "my poor boy!"
"It's all right!" Herrick said, "It's all right! They're wrong, that's all! They're wrong!"
He moved up and down the room with long, excited strides. False lights of misery—horrible corpse candles, leading their lying way toward that which was bitterer than a new-made grave!—"Why, Denny did it! We all know that! You've just said so, yourself!"
"Ah, yes, truly. Surely! But—yet—"