that it
may be pleasant. Good-bye, my son."

I think he had often planned that leave taking. Surely it must have
satisfied him.

XIII

He was gone, like the shades of which he had spoken, and Mademoiselle and
I were left staring at the black rectangle of the broken door. I drew a
deep breath and looked about me quickly. It seemed somehow as though a
spell were broken, as though the curtain had lowered on some final act in
the theatre. Slowly my mind seemed to free itself from a hundred
illusions, and to move along more logical paths. Brutus went to the arms
rack in the corner, and selected a rusted cutlass from the small arms
that still rested there, thrust it at me playfully and grinned. For a
minute or even more, the single log that was still burning in the
fireplace hissed drowsily, and I could hear the vines tapping gently on
the windows. Then I heard a pistol shot, followed by a hoarse cry.
Mademoiselle started to her feet, and then sank back in her chair again,
and from where I was standing I could see that her face was white and her
hands were trembling. So she loved him. My hand gripped hard against the
back of a chair. Why should I have hoped she did not?

"God!" she gasped. "I have killed him!"

"You?" I cried, but she did not answer.

"Huh!" said Brutus, and his grin grew broader. "Monsieur's pistol. He
kill him."

"Indeed," I said, for the sense of unreality was still strong upon me.
"And whom did he kill, Brutus?"

Brutus cocked his head to one side, and listened. Somewhere behind came a
confusion of shouts and the thudding of horses' hoofs.

"He kill Mr. Jason Hill," said Brutus.

"Are you sure?" Mademoiselle demanded sharply.

Brutus nodded, and the dull, fixed look went out of her eyes, and slowly
a touch of color returned to her cheeks.

And then there was a clamor of voices and a tramp of feet and a crash on
the door outside.

Brutus looked about him in wild indecision.

"We have callers," I observed, doing my best to keep my voice calm. "Who
are they, Brutus?"

Brutus, however, had forgotten me, and had sprung into the hall. At
almost the same instant, someone must have discovered that the door was
unlocked, for a sudden draught eddied through the passage. Then there
was a confused babel of voices, to which I did not listen. I was busy
swinging up the sash of the nearest window.

"Quickly, Mademoiselle!" I whispered.

"Damn it!" someone shouted from the hall. "There's an