Mistake! Imaginings! No! It _was_ the Tocsin!
It was her voice! The gleam of his flashlight cut the black, and,
leaping across the room, played upon the small, narrow, oblong
window--it was from there the voice had come. But it was only black and
empty there. And around the room his flashlight swept, and it was black
and empty there, too--except for a square, white object upon the floor
below the window. She was gone.
And it was like a half sob that came from Jimmie Dale's lips.
"Gone!" he whispered miserably. "Gone!"
Why had she gone like that? Why had she not waited--just for a moment,
just for the single instant, if he could have had no more, that he would
have given his life to have? And the answer was in his soul. He knew,
and he, knew that she, too, knew, that it would not have been moment or
an instant--that he would never have let her go again. And to follow
her? He shook his head. By the time he had climbed out of the window,
what trace, any more than there was now, would there of her! She was
gone--a sort of finality in her act, as there always was, that left
nothing to be done, or said.
But the note! That white thing there upon the floor! He crossed the
room, picked it up, tore it open, and, with his flashlight upon it,
began to read.
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