outside. Chrissie sat at his elbow stroking his sleeve. Chrissie was everywhere in the room.
Still he sat there, letting the hours crawl past, the small glowing ember of horror of what he wanted to do slowly dying in his mind.
Then he got up. He leant down and took off his shoes. The hot darkness of the room lay heavily on him. He took a slow step forward and then another. His progress was silent. Opening the door, he stepped into the outer room. A faint gleam came from the stove, and the coal hissed a little. He moved on, trying each board carefully with his stockinged foot before putting his full weight on it.
His hands touched the rough wood of Chrissie's door. He turned the handle and went in.
He could see nothing. It was as if he were blind. He closed the door gently behind him, his fingers easing the door so that it shut without a sound. Then he put out his hand and moved forward again, groping for the foot of the bed. The whisky fumes were tight round his brain, and he felt his legs lurch as he came forward. It seemed to him that he must have moved right across the room, and it startled him when his hand touched the cold rail of the bed.
He waited there listening. Faintly he could hear Chrissie breathing. Very faintly, as if she were a long way away from him.
He moved on, pressing his leg against the side of the bed to guide him. His hand touched the rail of the head of the bed. He crouched a little, his hands moving down, feeling very gently for Chrissie's throat. Hands that were ready to nip any cry that she might make.
His hands touched something. Something cold came to his touch. Something he didn't like. He drew his hands away. A little shiver ran through him because the thing he had touched was like nothing he knew. It scared him.
Angry with himself, he put his hand out again. His fingers encountered a face. He knew he was touching a face. He could feel the nose, and the eyebrows were rough to his touch. But the face was cold and leathery, not the warm soft face he expected.
With a catch in his breath, he snatched his hand away, and with trembling fingers he fumbled for a match. The sweat ran down his, face. He struck the match, which flared up with a little hiss.
He saw the outline of a body lying under the soiled sheet and, bending forward, he looked into the dead face of Roxy.
In the faint flickering light he could see the mud in Roxy's hair and nostrils. The light reflected in the glassy protruding eyes; across one of them a fly was moving with slow intentness.
Dillon's cry woke Chrissie, who had been sleeping in a corner away from the bed. She started up, terrified at the sight of Dillon standing there; and as she saw him, the match went out. Roxy's gun, that she had cuddled to her breast, went off in her twitching hand, and the bullet smashed into Dillon, sending him to the floor.
He had only a few seconds of pain before life went away from him.
THE END
