He undressed and lay down with a book and reading-candle, keeping his door ajar. Then, in the stillness, he became aware that Miss Latimer was weeping. Passionately yet monotonously she was sobbing; a strange agony of grief, with none of the plaints and moans of self-pity. Was it remorse, he wondered; despair for her exposure, or baffled fury at finding her prey escape her, and Tony to be restored to life again? But Miss Latimer would never feel remorse; would never feel herself exposed. And Tony was not her prey; it had been for another that she had tracked her down. All, all had been done, as all with her had always been, for love of Malcolm. And, with a curious, unwilling pity, he knew, as he listened, that he did not believe of her that she felt herself to be a liar. Her simplicity had been unable to interpret truly the overwhelming experience that had befallen her. It had been as genuine, as immediate as that of a Jeanne d'Arc. She was an unsanctified saint; or, rather, a sibyl, who had found her magic inefficacious and who feared the menace to her beloved of a universe deaf to her incantations.
When, at last, for a long time, silence had fallen, and he had put out his light, he could not have slept had he wished it. It was his last night in the hateful house and the hours seemed heavy with significance. The wailing sobs, though silenced, still beat an undertone to his thoughts, thoughts of Malcolm, his dead friend, now, harmlessly, the immortal spirit; and thoughts of his dear Tony. Not till yesterday, when the waters had closed over them, had he known the depths of his love for Tony, and only through their anguish had the depths of her innocent, tragically gentle heart been revealed to him. Yet, while he thought of her, yearning over her, in her childlike sleep, with love unspeakable, the anguish seemed to hover like a cloud above him, and Miss Latimer's sobs still to beat:--Dead.--Dead.--Dead.
The first housemaids were already stirring when at last he fell into a heavy sleep. So heavy it was that it seemed long, yet only a few hours could have gone by before he was awakened by a rapping at his half-open door. Even as he drowsily struggled forth from slumber, he was aware that it was not the knock that announced hot water and the hour of rising.