"Was it Denny?" he snapped.
"Denny?" said she, abstractedly. "Will? God bless me, no!"
He sighed with a kind of vacancy. "You could easily tell me so!"
"Well, then," said Christina, with considerable temper, "I will tell you something else. When I came here to-night, that I might not die of my own contempt I promised myself one thing. I swore to that girl I used to be, who carried so high a head she could not breathe the same air with you and never thought to stand you miawling and whimpering here about her feet, that at least I should tell no lies of love. There shall never come one out of my mouth to you and may God hear me. So if I do not tell you the man I thought of, it is only because I can not bear to speak his name in this place!—But rest easy! I am very capricious. Things will be different to-morrow. To-morrow, if you still think it interesting, you shall know."
"Know!" he cried. And catching her arm, looked at her with a baleful face. "Yes, there's my trouble! What do I know of you at all! I met you once four years ago—well, I forget myself, I know it! But did I?—Were you even then—? Well, at the inquest, at that reception, in the station, holding to Denny, the night of your performance, and now, to-night! There's my knowledge of you! You dazzle, you befool, you drive me crazy, and you leave me empty—why should I throw my life away for that! After all, where were you when all New York was looking for you? Nearly a week! Where were you?"
"Where was I!" Christina cried. "Well, it's rather long. But does not the favorite slave always tell stories to her master? Listen to Scheherezade."
Then, for the first time, Herrick heard the story of Christina's visit to the yellow house; how she had determined that Allegra must tell the authorities, in Denny's behalf, the story of his provocation against Ingham; how then, hidden in Nancy's, she had found Allegra's hair and guessed everything. "Then it seemed that the first thing was to get Nancy away, quietly, without warning, so that there should be no danger to her. I thought that then I could manage Allegra." She had had Allegra come into town for her performance, and go straight from it to the Amsterdam, up to Christina's apartment in Christina's name; following her there she had slept on the couch, and slipped off early in the morning. Suspecting the identity of the motor, she had telephoned for it as though to meet them both, and now she went on to tell Ten Euyck of her attempt to deceive Mrs. Pascoe, as though she had come from Allegra, and of her imprisonment in the closet.
"Ah, that wretched necklace! I said to myself, 'If it comes to a fight, they may find it and take it from me.' And then I should really have been in your power! I buried it in the flower-pot, thinking to come back with reinforcements!" She told of the flight in the rain, and of the farmers who wouldn't wake up. Both men listened, absorbed, staring. And Christina said, "I was afraid to go toward Waybrook, in case those men followed me. I ran toward Benning's Point. I feared the main road, too, and I thought I could follow the short cut. It is very hilly and broken and I had never seen it before in the dark; the sheets of rain were like the heavens falling, and the wind beat out my last strength; I was mud up to my knees and I had on heavy clothes, too large for me, all dragging down with wet. Perhaps it all made me stupid; at any rate, I lost my way. Oh!" said Christina, "that was hard!" and she put her hand over her heart. "I don't know—it must have been hours—I ran and staggered and stumbled and climbed! You are to remember I had had no food all day, and little enough the day before. And by and by I fell. I got up and on again for a little, but I had hurt myself in falling, and I fell again. And this time I lay there."
Ten Euyck lifted the border of her golden dress and put it to his lips.
The moisture of self-pity swam in Christina's eyes. "Nancy!" she said. "That was worst to think of!" In her own lip she set her teeth and soon she went on—"While I was still unconscious, a man came along with a motor. Somehow, he didn't run over me; he found me. And he recognized me! He wanted the reward. He took me to his sister's; to that Riley's. They gave me all sorts of hot drinks and things; I think they saved my life. But when I tried to thank them, something very comic had happened—I had lost my voice." Christina closed her eyes.