She gave a little nod. It was as though she were adding, "Take that." Orr was buttoning a glove, preparing to retreat. She turned to him: "Don't go. Stay and have a drink with Arthur. He looks as though he needed one." She moved back. "Yes, stay," she continued. "I am going." Once more the slender finger gloved in white was raised. "Arthur Annandale, never willingly will I see you again--except in court. For to court I shall go, if only to see you sentenced." At that, at the splendid ferocity of it, Orr looked at Annandale. When he turned to look at Fanny, silently, no doubt smilingly, she had gone. CHAPTER VI WHAT THE PAPERS SAID There are occasions when speech is an intrusion and sympathy an affront. An occasion of this kind coincided with Fanny's exit. On the mantel the clock still ticked. Otherwise there was silence in that room. Orr, finishing with his glove, made for the door. "If I can be of use," he said, "let me know." Annandale stood up. "You can," he answered. For a moment he hesitated. He seemed lost and dizzy. Then, with an effort, he got himself together. "Tell Sylvia it is not true." Orr passed out. But instead of returning at once to Irving Place he went up the steps of an adjoining house. There he was told that Mrs. Loftus could see no one. He had not expected to be received. But he felt for her, felt, too, how she must feel. That a Loftus should die would, he knew, be enough. But that a Loftus should be murdered, and that Loftus be her son, there was something which, Orr thought, might perhaps overwhelm her. And, as Orr afterward learned, Mrs. Loftus was then sitting, her attendants about her, absently and ceaselessly shaking her head. Nor did the motion of it ever cease. She was palsied. Before Orr learned of that other things supervened, primarily fresh extras. These of course were indicated. The imagination of the public had been stirred. Of all things mystery affects the imagination most. Here was one agreeably heightened by subsequent editions announcing the projection of the eternal feminine. Then those that read these sheets felt that they were getting their money's worth. But the feeling was accentuated when one of the papers gratified them with a picture of a girl who they saw was an exceedingly fetching young woman and who they were informed had vanished from her residence, the Arundel, where she was known as Miss Leroy. Her connection with Loftus, a connection which the neighborhood generally understood, was shown with reportorial ease. With the same ease it was established that he had been with her the evening preceding the night of his death. Bag and baggage the next morning she had flown. That fact in itself was prodigiously interesting. A young and pretty assassin, what! It was quite like fiction. It was almost too good or too bad to be true. Besides, the picture displayed a girl not merely pretty but quasi-ideal, a face infinitely delicate, disdainful yet sad.