VIII.
At a quarter before six, a woman ascended the marble steps of the oldmansion at No. 74 West L---- Street, east side. She wore a plain dressof silver-gray material, a rich Persian shawl, a neat walking hat, herface thickly veiled. Reaching the door, she laid her gloved hand on theknob, then hesitated, as if undecided whether to enter at once or ring.
The heavy clouds hung oppressively low, and it was already dusk. A fewflakes of snow were falling, but it was not cold.
All at once the woman removed her hand from the door, slipped off hershawl and threw it across her arm. As she did so some thing glitteredbright, which she hastily concealed beneath the shawl. As she stood nowshe was the exact counterpart of Eva Delorme. Then without furtherhesitation she laid hold of and turned the heavy knob of the massiveblack door. It yielded noiselessly, and she entered, closing it asnoiselessly behind her.
Within all was dark. A faint ray of light crept in through the transom,penetrating a few feet into the blackness. She stood almost against thedoor, listening and hardly breathing. All was silent. She had expectedthe other to be there before her, waiting for his coming. She put outher hand and felt about her. She touched a chair at her left and softlylaid her shawl upon it, keeping firm hold upon the keen weapon she hadcarried beneath it. She listened again; still no sound. She was growingimpatient. She took a few steps forward, keeping one hand extended infront of her to avoid collision. Then she turned and retraced her steps.
She had been very cool, thus far, but she was losing control of herself.Why did she not come? She had said in her letter that she wasill--pshaw! it was but a trick to arouse his sympathy. She mustcome--_she must come_!
She paced back and forth in the small space which she had explored andfound free from obstruction. Three steps forward and turn--three stepsback and turn; pausing each time to hold her breath and listen, whilethe fingers of her left hand involuntarily crept down and pressedagainst the keen point of the dagger until it pierced through her gloveand entered the tender flesh.
Suddenly a white ray of light shot through the transom above her,falling at an angle against a projection in the wall at her left, anddimly illuminating the entire place. It was six o'clock, and the largearc light just outside was turned on. Then, as she reached the door andwhirled quickly in her march, she saw her for whom she waited standingat the extreme farther end of the long hall. Between them was whatappeared to be a narrow and ornamented archway.
She could dimly distinguish the figure clad in gray. The face, like herown, was veiled. She noticed with quick satisfaction that her disguisewas perfect--the counterpart was exact even to the smallest detail.
Without hesitation, and concealing the dagger in the folds of her dress,she advanced quickly and silently toward her rival, who, somewhat toher surprise, instead of fleeing or crying out, also advanced. She wasgoing to try strength with her.
"I will kill her with a blow," she muttered.
They were now within a few feet of each other--the ornamented archexactly between them. Suddenly Evelin March snatched the dagger from itsconcealment and raised it aloft to strike. As she did so her rival madeprecisely the same movement, and something glittered in her hand also.Both took a quick, forward step, and each, at the same instant, struckfiercely with a swinging, downward blow.
A hissing metallic report, a low moan and the sound of a fallingbody--then silence.
A moment later the hall door burst open for a second time, and in theflood of electric light that poured in, Julian Paul Goetze saw a gray,veiled figure, stretched upon the floor, the gloved hand clasping ajeweled hilt, the blade of which was buried in her bosom. A stream ofcrimson was discoloring the fabric of her dress, and spreading in a darkpool on the rich carpet.
Rushing forward he caught up the prostrate form and tore away the veil.
Then, as if by magic, a revelation swept over him in one mighty wave ofhorror. _The strange, piteous look he had once seen on the face ofEvelin March was again before him, and while he gazed he saw itmelting--melting, almost insensibly, like the blending outlines of adissolving view--into the saintly loveliness of Eva Delorme._
The mists of doubt, the shadows of suspicion, and the fever ofcuriosity that had troubled him during those feverish months, weresuddenly swept away. Eva Delorme--Evelin March--one and the same. Onebody, one soul, one heart; by some strange freak of nature--some wildmental vagary or devilish witchery of which he could not know--made twoin life, but only one in death.
Above her was a heavy French-plate mirror, in an ornamented frame,cracked entirely across. From its polished surface the self-aimed,glancing dagger had found its way to the one troubled heart of those twostrange lives, and brought to it silence and restfulness forever.
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