In her clothes press she rummaged feverishly, selecting the freshest of last season’s dinner-gowns,--an orchid-mauve affair with touches of violet and silver,--very charmingly calculated to enhance her chestnut hair and slender, milk-white beauty. Now she really must hurry--for the mantel-clock had run down weeks ago and her wrist-watch was broken, and she had that deliciously guilty feeling which is entirely and constitutionally feminine--the sensation of being awaited by love impatient and probably adorably out of temper. To see whether it still was raining she ran to the window. The street seemed to be full of movement and noise--shrill voices, people running, a throng in the rain surging, ebbing, scattering as an ambulance clanged into the street from Greenwich Avenue. A second’s hesitation, then she lowered the shade, ran to her closet for a cloak and umbrella, opened the outer door, switched off every light, and hurried downstairs. On the steps she opened her umbrella and made her way through the increasing crowd toward the taxi-cab. She had no morbid curiosity concerning such painful scenes, when curiosity alone could afford no aid. She heard a ragged boy say something about “a coupla guys dead acrost the street”--and shuddered as she stepped into the taxi-cab. The driver turned around and opened the front window: “When I heard that first shot,” he said excitedly, “I tuk it f’r a blow-out. Yes, ma’am. Then come two more shots an’ I gets wise an’ ducks. I hear them two fellas are dead. Some gun-play. I’ll say so.... Where to, lady?” CHAPTER XXXV Only in books does the story of an individual begin and end. But birth cannot begin that story; nor can death end it. Sequel and sequence, continued and continuous, serial interminable. At the autopsy enough coal-tar was discovered in the viscera of Mr. Carter to account for the large orifice he blew in the abdomen of Mr. Smull. The motive, too, seemed to be clear enough. Smull had been instrumental in sending Carter to prison, where he had become an addict. Also, Mr. Shill exhibited letters in which Mr. Carter promised to “get” Mr. Smull unless a satisfactory financial arrangement were made for his personal maintenance. The name of Eris did not appear in the newspapers. There were black-edged cards tacked to the bulletin boards of several fashionable clubs, announcing the decease of Albert Wesly Smull. Nothing like that for Eddie Carter. Saint Berold’s Chapel indorsed Smull. The music was especially fine. The Crook’s Quickstep for Carter; Broadway’s roar his requiem. However, what was left of Eddie, coal-tar and all, went to Evergreen Valley Cemetery in an automobile hearse, chased by one trailer. A young girl got out of the trailer after the coffin was lowered, the grave filled, and the mound deftly shaped. She laid a bunch of wild blue asters and golden-rod on the mound.