The Romantic

(Continued from page 31.)

“Oh, yes. Far too long. Far too long.” And she was down on her knees beside the dead boy.

“I don't think you understand,” Mephistopheles began, but she waved him into silence and gazed down on the young dead face so close to her own. It seemed such a waste. Such a dreadful, cruel waste. All this death—because of her. With gentle fingers she smoothed the waving hair, closed the staring eyes, and straightened the sprawling limbs. Then she went to cross the dead hands on the dead breast, and not till then did she realise how blind she had been, for the hands told their own tale. The long, tapering fingers, already stiffening in death, were all turned inwards, grasping, like the claws of a bird of prey.

Police-Inspector Brady rose from his chair beside the counter. Fatigue had accentuated the lines on his face, and his deep-set eyes were very tired.

“We'd better get him out of here as quickly as we can,” he said, and he assisted Miss Mitford to rise.

When, long afterwards, she returned to her sitting room, she found that the book she had been reading, with its cover depicting an Elizabethan Gallant, sword in hand, had fallen into the fire. Slowly the leaves had curled up, burst into flame, and then crumbled away, leaving only a shapeless, blackened mass to remind her of the tale.