It was a terrible picture, and one that could not fail to arouse in thoughtful minds a hopeless sense of despair. No one could look on it and say that human life is a success. We may paint the good points as brilliantly as we like, slur over the misery as quickly as we can, but, my brothers and sisters, the fact remains that we, as a race, are an utter failure.
Presently there was a soft knock at the front-door, and Trist rose from his chair. His watch was over; the hospital nurse had arrived, with her soft brave eyes, her quick, fearless fingers. As he left the room, Trist turned and glanced towards the bed. Huston lay there with closed eyes, unnaturally still.
Then the war-correspondent left the room on tiptoe. No sooner had the door closed than the sick man’s eyes opened. There was a peculiar shifty light in the expanded pupils, and the man’s horrible lips moved continuously. He sat up in bed.
“Ah!” he mumbled thickly; “I know him. That’s the man … that’s the man who’s in love with my wife.”
The fire rose and fell with merry crackle—for Trist had drawn the coals together noiselessly before leaving the room—and in the semidarkness a strange unsteady form moved to and fro.
“I know him,” mumbled the horrible voice, “and … I’m going to shoot him.”
There was a slight sound as if a drawer were being searched in a table or piece of furniture which was not quite firm upon its base, and a moment later the door was opened without noise. In the passage a single jet of gas burnt mournfully, and threw a flood of light through the open doorway.
Upon the threshold stood Huston, quaking and swaying from side to side. In his trembling fingers he held a large Colt’s revolver of the cavalry pattern. The tips of the conical bullets peeped from the chambers threateningly. His clumsy hands were fumbling with the hammer, which was stiff and deeply sunk within the lock; the light was bad. He raised the pistol closer to his swimming eyes, and the barrel, gleaming blue and brown alternately, wavered in the air.
“D⸺n the thing!” he muttered hoarsely.
The next instant there was a terrific report through the silent house.
A moment later Trist and the nurse were at the head of the stairs; they had raced up side by side. The woman seized a worn sheepskin mat that lay at the door of an empty bedroom, and, drawing her skirts aside, knelt down and raised the mutilated face.
“Don’t let it run on the floor,” she gasped, “it is so horrible!”
They were both old hands and callous enough to be very quick. By the time that the startled household was aroused, the dead man (for the great bullet had passed right through his brain) was laid upon his bed, and Trist had already gone for the doctor.
“No one must go in,” said the nurse, standing upon the threshold and barring the way. “He is dead. There is nothing to be done. Wait until the doctor comes.”
Presently Trist returned, bringing with him the surgeon and a police-inspector. They all went into the room together and closed the door. Trist turned up the gas and watched the movements of the surgeon, who was already at the bedside.
“Where is the bullet?” asked the inspector.
“In the woodwork of the door,” answered Trist.
The doctor left the bedside and came into the middle of the room, standing upon the hearthrug with his back towards the fire.
“I should be of opinion,” he said, “that it was an accident.”
The inspector nodded his head, and looked from the nurse to Trist.
“Does anybody,” he asked, “know who he is, or anything about him?”
“I know who he is and all about him,” answered the war-correspondent.
Notebook in hand, the inspector glanced keenly at the speaker.
“And … who are … you?” he asked, writing.
“Theodore Trist.”
“Ah!” murmured the doctor.
The inspector drew himself up and continued writing.
“Do you know, sir, what he was doing with the pistol? Had he any intention of using it upon himself or upon any other?”
Trist looked at his questioner calmly.
“I do not know,” he answered.
II
Breaking It
Like one in a dream Theodore Trist passed out into the narrow street somewhat later. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning; the ball was scarcely over, and yet to this unimaginative man it seemed ages since he had spoken with William Hicks, listening in a vague way to the swinging waltz music all the while. When he reached his quiet rooms, he was almost startled at the sight of his own dress-clothes, spotless shirtfront, and unobtrusive flower. He had quite forgotten that these garments of pleasure were beneath his overcoat. His night’s work had not been in keeping with dress-clothes.
“I will think,” he said to himself, “how it is to be broken to everybody tomorrow.” And with great serenity he went to bed.
Sleep soon came to him despite the incidents crowded into the last few hours. It is a habit with some people to lie awake at night and ponder over their woes. They regard this as a solemn duty, a homage to be paid to the Goddess of Tears; and they never fail to mention their melancholy vigil to someone or other more or less connected with the trouble next morning. It is merely habit, and of no more value than the custom of mentioning with lowered voice the name of one who had been dead twenty years, and whose memory can after that space of time assuredly be awakened without such poignant grief as is considered its due.
Trist was not one of these. He valued human life at no very great price, and as (after all has been
