broke
the silence.

"Nobody must go." He eyed them all, gravely. "I left him, yes. He does
not need any one. Personne. Very sudden. He went to the school sick this
morning. Swollen axillae--the poor fool, not to know!--et
puis--enfin--He is dead."

Heywood pitched his cap on the green field of the billiard-cloth.

"The poor pedagogue!" he said bitterly. "_He_ was going Home."

Sudden, hot and cold, like the thrust of a knife, it struck Rudolph that
he had heard the voice of this first victim,--the peevish voice which
cried so weakly for a little silence, at early daylight, that very
morning. A little silence: and he had received the great.

A gecko fell from the ceiling, with a tiny thump that made all start. He
had struck the piano, and the strings answered with a faint, aeolian
confusion. Then, as they regarded one another silently, a rustle, a
flurry, sounded on the stairs. A woman stumbled into the loft, sobbing,
crying something inarticulate, as she ran blindly toward them, with
white face and wild eyes. She halted abruptly, swayed as though to fall,
and turned, rather by instinct than by vision, to the other women.

"Bertha!" protested Gilly, with a helpless stare. "My dear!"

"I couldn't stay!" she cried. "The amah told me. Why did you ever let me
come back? Oh, do something--help me!"

The face and the voice came to Rudolph like another trouble across a
dream. He knew them, with a pang. This trembling, miserable heap, flung
into the arms of the dark-eyed girl, was Mrs. Forrester.

"Go on," said the girl, calmly. She had drawn the woman down beside her
on the rattan couch, and clasping her like a child, nodded toward the
piano. "Go on, as if the doctor hadn't--hadn't stopped."

Heywood was first to obey.

"Come, Chantel, chantez! Here's your song." He took the stool in
leap-frog fashion, and struck a droll simultaneous discord. "Come on.--
Well, then, catch me on the chorus!"

"Pour qu' j' finisse
Mon service
Au Tonkin je suis parti!"

To a discreet set of verses, he rattled a bravado accompaniment.
Presently Chantel moved to his side, and, with the same spirit, swung
into the chorus. The tumbled white figure on the couch clung to her
refuge, her bright hair shining below the girl's quiet, thoughtful face.
She was shaken with convulsive regularity.

In his riot of emotions, Rudolph found an over-mastering shame. A
picture returned,--the Strait of Malacca, this woman in the blue
moonlight,