“Yes! In one hideous, backward-looking lightning-flash, I saw just what had been Anita’s fate. I saw her long months of mental eclipse, following the attack of a madman. I had often noted her not unkindly meant attitude of racial superiority toward the frantically sensitive Richmond; and I understood just how a mere glance or word of hers had whipped to the surface the one black drop in his high-strung, overwrought frame, driving him to an unspeakable betrayal. No wonder he had killed himself. No wonder the proud, blameless girl had cried aloud to her husband, out of the abyss of darkened reason, that she was caught and crushed in a web not of her own weaving!” “I suppose,” hesitated Gerald, “there was never any doubt of Richmond’s crime?” “None whatever. There was even a witness! As a matter of fact, poor faithful Loretta, who worshipped Anita, and followed her like a shadow, had been working in the room next to the office, when she heard Richmond talking to Mrs. Janvier, in a crazy, shrieking way, about a prescription. His tone was so strange and threatening that she was terrified for her mistress, and rushed toward the office. The door was slammed violently in her face, and locked. She beat on the panels, and screamed, but help came too late.” The level voice faltered a moment, then continued: “My first impulse was to escape from the room, anywhere, anywhere, out of the horror of it. But Anita’s face with its majestic calm held me there; that, and the example of Janvier’s fortitude. And, well, life must be lived! There might be something I could do for Janvier, or Giuseppe, for that matter, on their return. Once again I went to the alcove, this time carrying a lighted candle, to be doubly sure of a dreadful thing. The tiny bronze face with closed eyes implored only peace—a shadow praying to return to its rest among shadows. “Until gray morning, I waited in that still house for Janvier. I did not know what I should do or say; I only knew that I knew what were better left unknown, perhaps. But how small my own distresses seemed when he came in, and shed the light of his indomitable spirit over that place of sorrows! He seemed a creature emerging out of the wreck of all his own hopes, supported out of chaos solely by his will to re-create hope in the world. “‘Giuseppe’s boy will live, I think,’ he said, simply. ‘We’ve brought him through the crisis. Thank you, Steven, for giving me the chance to save him. I could not have left Anita unless you had stayed. Poor Loretta was tired beyond endurance, and I had sent away the trained nurse. She was worn out, too.’ “I wrung his hand. ‘I loved Anita,’ I sobbed out, weakly enough.