In a childish terror of broken nerves, "Bryce!" Christina shrieked. Then her shrieking, outstretched fingers touched a rough, damp sleeve, and "Bryce!" she sobbed contentedly. They met with a bump, and clutched each other, laughing with joy, in this little moment before the last. Already they could hear the hurrying men; dark figures blackened on the darkness, the terraces came alive with sound, lights showed and were gone; and Herrick, holding the empty gun, sought vainly to put Christina back from him. She held to him, leaning on him, hardly breathing. "It's death, dear!" she said. "Forgive me!"
"Oh!"
She felt him bend his head, and lifting up her face, she set her mouth to his.
From the carriage sweep without there came—two short and one long—three notes from the horn of an automobile.
CHAPTER V
CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX
The door from the hall opened, letting in a flood of light. At the same time a man stepped through one of the windows. He was the first of a number whom the halls and staircases instantly absorbed. Out of Herrick's very hold Christina slipped and caught this man by the arm and hung away from him as she was wont to hang upon the arm of Hermann Deutch. "Oh, heaven and our fathers!" cried she in a faint wail. "But you were a little late!"
The man, standing tense in the shadow, was examining the room with appraising eyes. Christina, blind to something rigid in him, hurried on. "And I did so depend on a quick curtain! But all's well that ends well—I've got it! Mr. District-Attorney, your mail!"
"Who's that with you?" said the voice of Henry Kane.