Then Ingham says, "Well, if you didn't wish her to have done with you, my dear fellow, why did you throw her over for this married lady?"
Will never gets any further than to stand by that panel of wall, between the portières and the door. He looks to me and not to Ingham, and it is the one time in my life when I can think of nothing to say. I talk on and on, but I say nothing. It is the fault of that Ingham who continues to laugh, and to play like an angel who is a devil, too.
I tell him that Filippi married me when I was an ignorant child, with poor people, for the sake of the Hopes' money; how he brought me to this country and deserted me and came back after I had thought I was free, and had made friends with Ingham because I was destitute and alone. And he does not speak. But he does not believe me. I fall down on my knees and tell him, before Ingham's face, how I love him, and only him; how there never was any other man who had my heart! How when I saw him I knew he was my life, and I was born anew in knowing him. I tell him how I fear to let him know I am married. But how I am trying all the time to get free, and how I would have been free before I married him; how not for years have I been a wife to Filippi who hangs upon us and will not work and does not care for me! And I take his hand and cover it with kisses and with tears, and I implore him not to leave me, I shall die if he leaves me! And I ask him if he himself has never in his life done wrong! And I swear if I lied to him it was for love for him! He knows that is true; he cannot look at me, and not know! And I throw myself down, before his feet.
He lifts me up by one shoulder, and he looks at me long and long; still kind but very cold and still, and what he says is, "Then was it a lie you told me about her—and this man?" He has not one thought of me, at all.
It throws me into a great rage. I spring up and round the table, and Jim, who has not ceased to play, laughs loud, and gives one crash of chords. It is his triumph and I could kill him for it. I am all one fire of hate that tosses in the wind, and I lift my arm and Herrick sees my shadow on the blind. But quick I put my hand over my mouth, petrified. For at that moment there is a soft, quick knocking on the door and Christina's voice saying, "Let me in, both of you! Let me in!"
By good luck, she has come while I am silent. And I leap forward and catch my hat up off the table and fly behind the curtains. For I know I have lost Will. And if I lose her, too, I have nothing. And Ingham breaks into the march from "Faust," triumphing, and just then I see through the curtain crack on the little chair at Will's side his pistol that he has dropped. And I hear Ingham say, now all in fury, "Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are, through and through?—" And the door opens. She had her key, Christina, that she had forgot to give him back. And she calls out, sharp, to Will. But she turns to Ingham and says, "I implore you, leave me with him a moment!" And he swirls round to see where I have run. I snatch up Will's pistol and fire past him from behind the curtain into Ingham's heart. Will reaches back to catch my hand and shakes the pistol out of it. It has not taken one breath and his first thought is for Christina, yes, and for me, and he snaps off the light. There she stands in the doorway; the light in the hall on Ingham fallen back dead. And when she turns her eyes again, there is still no one there but Will. Will stoops for the pistol that still smokes and drops it loose in his pocket.
