Murder -- Fiction; San Francisco (Calif.) -- Fiction
Yes, the pistol was the Senora's. Mr. Montgomery had bought it for her
a little while before. Yes, the Senora had made sure to save Mr.
Montgomery and but for the Senorita Fenwick it would have been. For
she had many friends, friends of power, he said. At that Mr. Dingley
grew paler, and started to speak, but then he seemed to change his
mind. Father looked at him, and I wondered then had the trouble been
that Mr. Dingley had been one of those friends of hers. When the
police came and we left the place, Mr. Dingley and father separated
without a word, and father took me home alone in the carriage.
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS
All the experiences which I had gone through with, with such apparent
lack of feeling, seemed to take their revenge on me at once. For a
while I was very ill, delirious with fever; and when I was myself again
and the doctor would let me be talked to, the new trial was all over,
and Johnny Montgomery had been acquitted a week ago. It was Hallie,
all smiles, with her hands full of roses, who brought this news in to
me; and in a few days, she said, Jack Tracy had told her, Montgomery
was going to leave the city. This set me wondering whether that night
in the carriage and everything we had told each other then had been no
more than part of my fever visions.
At last I gathered courage enough to ask father if Johnny Montgomery
had inquired about me. Father looked annoyed, and said, "Yes," that he
had been sending every day, and that he had asked if he might see me
when I was able, but, father said, he had thought it best to refuse.
That made me so miserable I began to be ill again, and the doctor was
afraid I would have a relapse; so finally father gave his permission
for me to see Johnny.
It was strange and unreal to think that it was actually he, gaunt and
white and serious-looking, standing beside my bed and gazing down at me
with timid eyes. We were both so glad to see each other we were a
little afraid. The shadow of things that had happened was over us
still and made us grave.
I must have looked very thin, for he took my hand as if he thought it
would break and his voice was hardly above a whisper. He said whatever
good came of him and whatever happiness he had hereafter he would owe
to me, and that would be more than owing me his life; but father was
right in saying that a man with the reputation he held in this city had
no right to see or speak with me. He had only come to thank me and to
say good-by. He was going away to South America.
"But father does not know you," I said, "and I am sure you are quite a
different man from what any one here thinks you. And if you go away it
will break my heart."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account