Part 38 (1/2)

I arranged a good _menu_ with Mango, decorated the table, and was ready to receive his guest. Dinner pa.s.sed as smoothly and pleasantly as a deep river may glide over dark unthinkable things.

Just as the boys were putting the dessert upon the table I felt something against my skirt. I pushed back my chair and looked down.

Snowie had come home.

With a cry I caught her up and put her on the table before me. The next cry came from the guest.

”My G.o.d!--the fiend who did that ought to be--hanged!”

There was a silence that the kitten tried to break. She essayed to mew, almost as if she had something to tell; but no sound came from the broken jaws gummed together with matter and dried blood. One blue eye gazed dully round, the other was battered into her head like a crushed turquoise. Every paw but one was broken; they trailed behind her, and her body waggled strangely from an injured spine. I was afraid to take the little mangled body to my breast for fear of what fresh pain I might cause it. I thought I heard it moaning like a woman: yet its mouth did not move.

”Hanging would be too good for the brute--brandy, Stair--your wife is fainting.”

”No--no; milk--bring warm milk for my baby--it has Anthony's eyes--my poor little white baby--all broken--”

The moaning that did not come from Snowie filled the room.

”No use giving the poor little beggar milk, Mrs Stair--it is dying-- better to put it out of its misery at once--drink this brandy, will you--got any poison in the house, Stair?”

”Yes.”

The man took the kitten from me and went from the room, and I followed; but as I pa.s.sed Maurice Stair I whispered three words at him, with terrible eyes:

”_Take it then_!”

I had suffered too much.

As I entered my hut the silver travelling-clock that had come with me to Africa struck three clear notes from my dressing-table.

Of all the strange hours of my life it had knelled none more desperate than this! I came in with the dew of the night on my face, dust and dead leaves hanging to my white satin gown, some little stains of blood upon the bodice, an ashen-blue flower in my hand. My nails were full of earth. I had dug a grave with my hands for Snowie, and buried her among the zinias.

The hut seemed strange to me. I found myself looking round it as if I had never seen it before--or should never see it again. On the little altar the _veilleuse_ flickered upwards to the silver crucifix; and from above, the Mother of Consolation regarded me with grave, sad eyes that made me afraid of my purpose. I turned away and opened a dispatch-box on my dressing-table, and took from it the revolver I had brought to Rhodesia.

One little bullet lay snug, waiting to be sent on its message.

I stared at it, pondering on the power of such a tiny thing to force open the great sealed gates of Death! So small and insignificant, yet with surer, swifter power than anything that lived or breathed to send one swiftly beyond the stars, beyond the dawn, beyond the eternal hills!

I should know at last what fate was Anthony Kinsella's--but I dared not look behind me to where the _veilleuse_ gleamed on the drooping head of Christ who died for sinners.

A shadow fell across my hands as they mused upon the polished barrels, and in a moment the room seemed darker; the air grew bitter to breathe when I knew that Maurice Stair was sharing it with me. I looked in the mirror and saw his face.

”What do you want--murderer?”

”I want to die, Deirdre--I am not fit to live--kill me.”

”There is rat poison in the house,” I said, and saw my lips curving in the bitter gleaming smile of a Medusa as he blenched and shook under my words.

”My G.o.d!--you are cruel--crueller than death. It costs more to stand here and face you than to go and die like a rat in a hole. You are right, it _is_ the only death I am fit for--but speak to me first, Deirdre--give me one kind word--just one word.”