He need not even have torn
it up, as he had done through force of habit, for there was no "plan"
to-night, no coup to carry through. The note, for the first time, was
not a "call to arms;" it was what he had been longing for, always hoping
for, yet never permitting himself to build too strongly upon lest he
should lay up for himself a store of disappointment too bitter for
endurance--it was a note of _hope_. There were just a few lines, a few
sentences; and it had contained neither form of address nor signature.
To any one save himself it meant nothing, it had no significance.
Snatches of it ran through his mind again:
"... It is the beginning of the end.... The way is clearing ... I am very
happy to-night, and I wanted to tell you so...."
The end at last! The end of the years of peril; the end of that fear
gnawing always at his heart that she might never live to come out into
the sunlight again; the end of this dual life he led; the return to a
normal existence where surroundings like the present, where the dens and
dives of the underworld, the secret rookeries nursing their hell-hatched
crimes, the taint and smell of evil, and the reek of soul-filth would be
hereafter no more than a memory! To be through with it all, through
with it all, and to know her love instead--because she was safe!
He stared about him, and stared with queer incredulity at his own
miserable clothing.
Pages:
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348