"Let us go," said the bride. Her voice shook violently.
"Not you," said Farallone, "while I live."
He took a step toward her, his eyes dancing and smiling. "Do you know," he said, "I don't know if you'll do it or not. By my soul, I don't know. This is living, this is. This is gambling. I'll do nothing violent," he said, "until my hands are touching you. I'll move toward you slowly one slow step at a time--with my arms open--like this--you'll have plenty of chance to shoot me--we'll see if you'll do it."
They faced each other motionless. Then Farallone, his eyes glorious with excitement and passion, his arms open, moved toward her one slow, deliberate step.
"Wait," he cried suddenly. "This is too good for _them_." He jerked his thumb toward the groom and me. "This is a sight for gods--not jackasses. Go down to the river," he said to us. "If you hear a shot come back. If you hear a scream--then as you value your miserable hides--get!"
The bride, her voice tense and high-pitched, turned to us.
"Do as you're told," she cried, "or I shall ask this man to throw you over the cliff." She stamped her foot.
"And this man," said Farallone, "will do as he's told."
There was nothing for it. We left them alone in the meadow and descended the cliff to the river. And there we stood for what seemed the ages of ages, listening and trembling.
A faint, far-off detonation, followed swiftly by louder and fainter echoes, broke suddenly upon the rushing noises of the river. We commenced feverishly to scramble back up the cliff. Half-way to the top we heard another shot, a second later a third, and after a longer interval, as if to put a quietus upon some final show of life--a fourth.
A nebulous drift of smoke hung above the meadow.
Farallone lay upon his face at the bride's feet. The groom sprang to her side and threw a trembling arm about her.
But the bride freed herself gently from his encircling arm, and her eyes still bent upon Farallone----
"Not till I have buried my dead," she said.
At first nobody knew him; then the Hotchkisses knew him, and then it seemed as if everybody had always known him. He had run the gauntlet of gossip and come through without a scratch. He was first noticed sitting in the warm corner made by Willcox's annex and the covered passage that leads to the main building. Pairs or trios of people, bareheaded, their tennis clothes (it was a tennis year) mostly covered from view by clumsy coonskin coats, passing Willcox's in dilapidated runabouts drawn by uncurried horses, a nigger boy sitting in the back of each, his thin legs dangling, had glimpses of him through the driveway gap in the tall Amor privet hedge that is between Willcox's and the road. These pairs or trios having seen would break in upon whatever else they may have been saying to make such remarks as: "He can't be, or he wouldn't be at Willcox's"; or, contradictorily: "He must be, or he'd do something besides sit in the sun"; or, "Don't they always have to drink lots of milk?" or, "Anyway, they're quite positive that it's not catching"; or, "Poor boy, what nice hair he's got."