Is it?" Christina broke out. "Who knows!
"We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.
Ah, that stays my heart!—Ten Euyck!"
"My God!" he cried. "I won't bear it!"
He had his two hands on her shoulders and as she continued to play she lifted up toward his at once a laughing and a tragic face. "What does he matter to you?" she said, "to you, the Inspector of Police! Aren't you here, with me, and isn't he down and done for, and out of every race? As good as dead?
"He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone,
At his heels a grass-green turf;
At his head, a stone!
Come, pluck up spirit!
"Tramp, tramp, across the land they ride!
Hark, hark, across the sea!
Ah-ha, the dead do ride with speed!
Dost fear to ride with me?
—'Dost fear to ride with me?'" she sang, on the deepest note of her voice, and turning, rose and held Ten Euyck off from her, seeming to study and to challenge him, and then, with the excitement and the wild emotion which she had kindled in both of them, dying slowly from her face but not from his.
She released him, and, going to a little table, unclasped her necklace, and slipped the strings of diamonds from her arms. The crescent round her head came next. "What are you doing?" he almost whispered.