“Jacqueline!” he cried, and put his hands up before his face as if his eyes had fallen upon an avenging spirit.
“Is that Jacqueline Japha?” asked Mr. Sylvester, dragging down the other’s hands and pointing relentlessly towards the ominous figure in the window before him.
“Yes, or her ghost,” cried the other, shuddering under a horror that left him little control of his reason.
“Then your boy is lost,” murmured Mr. Sylvester, with a vivid remembrance of the words he had overheard. “She will never save her rival’s child, never.”
The man looked at him with dazed eyes. “She shall save him,” he cried, and stretching far out of the window by which he stood, he pointed to the bridge and called out, “Drop him, Jacqueline, don’t let him burn. He can still reach the next house if he runs. Save my darling, save him.”
But the woman as if waiting for his voice, only threw back her head, and while a bursting flame flashed up behind her, shrieked mockingly back:
“Oh I have frightened you up at last, have I? You can see me now, can you? You can call on Jacqueline now? The brat can make you speak, can he? Well, well, call away, I love to hear your voice. It is music to me even in the face of death.”
“My boy! my boy,” was all he could gasp; “save the child, Jacqueline, only save the child!”
But the harsh scornful laugh she returned, spoke little of saving. “He is so dear,” she hissed. “I love the offspring of my rival so much! the child that has taken the place of my own darling, dead before ever I had seen its innocent eyes. Oh yes, yes, I will save it, save it as my own was saved. When I saw the puny infant in your arms the day you passed me with her, I swore to be its friend, don’t you remember! And I am so much of a one that I stick by him to the death, don’t you see?” And raising him up in her arms till his whole stunted body was visible, she turned away her brow and seemed to laugh in the face of the flames.
The father writhed below in his agony. “Forgive,” he cried, “forgive the past and give me back my child. It’s all I have to love; it’s all I’ve ever loved. Be merciful, Jacqueline, be merciful!”
Her face flashed back upon him, still and white. “And what mercy have you ever shown to me! Fool, idiot, don’t you see I have lived for this hour! To make you feel for once; to make you suffer for once as I have suffered. You love the boy! Roger Holt, I once loved you.”
And heedless of the rolling volume of smoke that now began to pour towards her, heedless even of the long tongues of hungry flame that were stretched out as if feeling for her from the distance behind, she stood immovable, gazing down upon the casement where he knelt, with an indescribable and awful smile upon her lips.
The sight was unbearable. With an instinct of despair both men drew back, when suddenly they saw the woman start, unloose her clasp and drop the child out of her arms upon the bridge. A hissing stream of water had fallen upon the flames, and the shock had taken her by surprise. In a moment the father was himself again.
“Get up, little feller, get up,” he cried, “or if you cannot walk, crawl along the bridge to the next house. I see a fireman there; he will lift you in.”
But at that moment the flames, till now held under some control, burst from an adjoining window, and caught at the woodwork of the bridge. The father yelled in dismay.
“Hurry, little feller, hurry!” he cried. “Get over towards the next house before it is too late.”
But a paralysis seemed to have seized the child; he arose, then stopped, and looking wildly about, shook his head. “I cannot,” he cried, “I cannot.” And the woman laughed, and with a hug of her empty arms, seemed to throw her taunts into the space before her.
“Are you a demon?” burst from Mr. Sylvester’s lips in uncontrollable horror. “Don’t you see you can save him if you will? Jump down, then, and carry him across, or your father’s curse will follow you to the world beyond.”
“Yes, climb down,” cried the fireman, “you are lighter than I. Don’t waste a minute, a second.”
“It is your own child, Jacqueline, your own child!” came from Holt’s white lips in final desperation. “I have deceived you; your baby did not die; I wanted to get rid of you and I wanted to save him, so I lied to you. The baby did not die; he lived, and that is he you see lying helpless on the bridge beneath you.”
Not the clutch of an advancing flame could have made her shrink more fearfully. “It is false,” she cried; “you are lying now; you want me to save her child, and dare to say it is mine.”
“As God lives!” he swore, lifting his hand and turning his face to the sky.
Her whole attitude seemed to cry, “No, no,” to his assertion but slowly as she stood there, the conviction of its truth seemed to strike her, and her hair rose on her forehead and she swayed to and fro, as if the earth were rolling under her feet. Suddenly she gave a yell, and bounded from the window. Catching the child in her arms, she attempted to regain the refuge beyond, but the flames had not dallied at their work while she hesitated. The bridge was on fire and her retreat was cut off. She did not attempt to escape. Stopping in the centre of the rocking mass, she looked down as only a mother in her last agony can do, on the child she held
