"Well, then, I don't see anything remarkable in her having a blue one."
"No, sir. Not if they was both blue. But the other one was brown!"
The anticipated laughter swept the room. After a pallid glare even the coroner laughed.
"Well, Joe, I'm afraid you must have been very sleepy indeed! I don't wonder the lady gave you such a turn! But if only you had been awake, Joe, your friend would have had one invaluable quality—she would be easily identified!"
Thus, almost gaily, the inquest ended. With Mr. Ingham closeted just before his death with an unaccounted-for woman and, presumably, with an unaccounted-for man, there was but one verdict for the jury to bring in, and they brought it. James Ingham had come to a violent death by shooting at the hands of a person or persons unknown.
Christina was surrounded by congratulating admirers. But Herrick had not gone far in the free air of the rainy street when, hearing his name called, he turned and saw her coming toward him. She had, in Joe Patrick's phrase, swum right along. She came to him exactly as she had come along the sea-beach in his dream, the wet wind in her skirts and in her hair, the fog behind her, and the cool light of clearing in her eyes. And she said to him,
"You're the man, I think, who thought a woman was in distress and went to help her?"
He replied, awkwardly enough, "I didn't see what else I could do!"
"You haven't been long in New York, Mr. Herrick," she replied. "I wonder, will you shake hands?"
He had her hand in his, stripped of her long glove, her soft but electric vitality at once cool and vibrant in his clasp.