wretched soul before exchanging its conscious lonesomeness for the obscure and problematic company of the damned. …
He was very near her now, himself a mist drifting softly through mist. …
Whispering—whispering—he could hear her whispering—a thin flow of meaning rather than of words, sent from the grayness to that light beyond—sent through a little measured casement out into the immeasurable brilliance of eternity. Her hands were resting easily by her side; her body relaxed more and more peacefully in repose.
“… and if you’re there, Tom darling, and Herbert, too …”
He could leap forward now and catch her if it were necessary, but better be safe, quite safe.
“… it won’t be heaven, dear. They have no room for such as you and me in heaven. But when you come—”
His arms closed gently about her, and her body seemed to stiffen into steel. She relaxed at once, and then stared down at him incuriously. She removed the noose from about her neck as casually as she might have taken off a hat. He lifted her to the floor.
“There isn’t any hurry,” she said.
He knew that she was hinting definitely at the future, when he and the law were finished with her and she would be free to book her passage for eternity again without supervision or restraint.
“No hurry, Mrs. Endicott; nor any need, now.”
The “now” dragged her sharply from the mists. She stared at him with penetrating interest.
“ Mr. Hollander,” he said, “will undoubtedly recover.”