"Have you understood? You are to run out of the house at once," Heyst
whispered urgently.
She lifted his hand to her lips and let it go. He was startled.
"Lena!" he cried out under his breath.
She was gone from his side. He dared not trust himself--no, not even to
the extent of a tender word.
Turning to go out he heard a thud somewhere in the house. To open the
door, he had first to lift the curtain; he did so with his face over his
shoulder. The merest trickle of light, earning through the keyhole
and one or two cracks, was enough for his eyes to see her plainly, all
black, down on her knees, with her head and arms flung on the foot of
the bed--all black in the desolation of a mourning sinner. What was
this? A suspicion that there were everywhere more things than he
could understand crossed Heyst's mind. Her arm, detached from the bed,
motioned him away. He obeyed, and went out, full of disquiet.
The curtain behind him had not ceased to tremble when she was up on her
feet, close against it, listening for sounds, for words, in a stooping,
tragic attitude of stealthy attention, one hand clutching at her breast
as if to compress, to make less loud the beating of her heart. Heyst
had caught Mr. Jones's secretary in the contemplation of his closed
writing-desk. Ricardo might have been meditating how to break into it;
but when he turned about suddenly, he showed so distorted a face that
it made Heyst pause in wonder at the upturned whites of the eyes, which
were blinking horribly, as if the man were inwardly convulsed.
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