The Inger was merely silent. In a moment, he took his leave and, as he went, he turned to Lory.
“If you want me,” he said, “send for me. I’ll be waitin’ there in the room I got.”
She made no answer. She had been like some one stricken since first she had seen who was in the room.
“You’ll do it?” he persisted, grateful for Hiram Folt’s nervous fire of questions at his new guest.
She met his eyes and, for an instant, it seemed to him that she gave him her eyes, as she had done that morning on the desert.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
The last sound that he heard as he went down the passage with his father was the fretful whining of the madman:
“Kill ’im—kill ’im—kill ’im....”
Out on the street the Inger looked at the stretch of asphalt pavement, the even fronts of the houses, the lights set a certain space apart, and he looked in the faces of men and women walking home with parcels. All these were so methodical and quiet that they made it seem impossible that he had just wanted to kill a man. All this scene was arranged and ordered, and what he had done had been—disorderly. He thought of the word as he had often seen it in the Inch Weekly: “arrested for being disorderly.” That was it, of course; and here the buildings were as they had been appointed, and the lights were set a certain space apart.... But he had not killed the man! And he was doing the way all the others were doing. He and his father were walking here, like all the others. This seemed wonderful. He looked at the lights and at the buildings as if he understood them.