He did. She was a grim and murky storm-cloud full of tornado when they crossed the pavement and the vestibule of the apartment-house and went up in the elevator. But once inside the door, her breast began to heave, her nostrils to quiver, her fingers to work. Her maid came to take her hat, and paled to see her torment. Zada gave her her things and motioned her away. She motioned her four or five times. The maid had needed only one motion. Cheever watched Zada out of the corner of his eye and wondered why he had ever been fated to fall in love with such a creature. He was convinced that he had been fate-forced into the intrigue. He had no sense whatever of volition or wicked intent. He could only feel that he had tried to be decent and play fair and be generous. The thought of what the neighbors were about to hear made him sick with chagrin. The fact that the neighbors were under suspicion themselves only aggravated the burden of shame. The hardest part of Zada's agony was her pitiful effort to take her medicine like a lady. It was terrific how hard it was for one of a wildcat heritage and habit to keep the caterwaul back and the claws muffled. The self-duel nearly wrecked Zada, but she won it. She was not thoroughbred, but she had tried to be thoroughgoing. She was evidently not a success as a self-made lady. She kept whispering to herself: “What's the use? Oh, why did I try? Oh, oh, oh, what a fool I've been! To think!--to think!--to think!” Cheever was distraught. He had waited for the outbreak, and when it did not come he suffered from the recoil of his own tension. “For the Lord's sake, yell!” he implored. She turned on him eyes of extraordinary abjection. She saw at last where her lawlessness had brought her, and she despised herself. But she did not love him any the more for understanding him. She saw at last that one cannot be an honest woman without actually being--an honest woman. She was going to get honesty if it broke a bone. She told her accomplice: “I want you to go away and stay away. Whatever you do, leave me be. There's nothing else you can do for me except to take back all the stuff you've bought me. Give it to that wife you love so much and wouldn't suspect no matter what she did. You love her so much that you wouldn't let her go even if she wanted to leave you. So go back to her and take these things to her with my comp'ments.” Now it was Cheever who wanted to scream as he had not screamed since he was the purple-faced boy who used to kick the floor and his adoring nurse. But he had lost the safety valve of the scream. He smothered. When Zada began to peel off her rings and thrust them out to him he swiftly turned on his heel and fled. He never knew whether Zada woke the block with her howls or not when he left her forever. He forgot to ask when he came back. CHAPTER XII