“Can’t you guess what it is to me to see you again like this?” he continued.

She sighed.

“It is something for me, too, to feel that I have a friend close at hand.”

“Come,” he said, “they are turning out the lights here.  You want to know about Wenham’s property.  Let me come upstairs with you for a little time and I will tell you as much as I can from memory.”

He paid the bill, helped her on with her cloak.  His fingers seemed like burning spots upon her flesh.  They went up in the lift.  In the corridors he drew her to him and she began to tremble.

“What is there strange about you, Jerry?” she faltered, looking into his face.  “You terrify me!”

“You are glad to see me?  Say you are glad to see me?”

“Yes, I am glad,” she whispered.

Outside the door of her rooms, she hesitated.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, faintly,—­“wouldn’t it be better if you came to-morrow morning?”

Once more his fingers touched her and again that extraordinary sense of fear seemed to turn her blood cold.

“No,” he replied, “I have been put off long enough!  You must let me in, you must talk with me for half an hour.  I will go then, I promise.  Half an hour!  Elizabeth, haven’t I waited an eternity for it?”

He took the keys from her fingers and opened the door, closing it again behind them.  She led the way into the sitting-room.  The whole place was in darkness but she turned on the electric light.  The cloak slipped from her shoulders.  He took her hands and looked at her.

“Jerry,” she whispered, “you mustn’t look at me like that.  You terrify me!  Let me go!”

She wrenched herself free with an effort.  She stepped back to the corner of the room, as far as she could get from him.  Her heart was beating fiercely.  Somehow or other, neither of these two young men, over whose lives she had certainly brought to bear a very wonderful influence, had ever before stirred her pulses like this.  What was it, she wondered?  What was the meaning of it?  Why didn’t he speak?  He did nothing but look, and there were unutterable things in his eyes.  Was he angry with her because she had married Wenham, or was he blaming her because Wenham had gone?  There was passion in his face, but such passion!  Desire, perhaps, but what else?  She caught up a telegram which lay upon her writing desk, and tore it open.  It was an escape for a moment.  She read the words, stared, and read them aloud incredulously.  It was from her father.

“Jerry Gardner sailed for New York to-day.”

She looked up at the man, and as she looked her face grew gray and the thin sheet went quivering from her lifeless fingers to the floor.  Then he began to laugh, and she knew.

“Wenham!” she shrieked.  “Wenham!”

There was murder in his face, murder almost in his laugh.

“Your loving husband!” he answered.