Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/351

 

He read it again and then he heard Hennery saying, "It was a turrible night, Mr. Downes . . . I guess it was one of those nights when all kinds of slimy things are out walkin'. They're up and gone too . . . both of them . . . the girls, Miss Lily and Miss Irene. And they ain't comin' back, so Miss Lily says. She went away, before it was light, on the New York flier. Oh, it was a turrible night, Mr. Downes . . . I've seen things happenin' here for forty years, but nothin' like last night . . . nothin' ever."

He began to moan and call on the Lord, and Philip remembered suddenly that the half-finished drawing of Lily Shane had disappeared. She had carried it off then, without a word. And slowly she again began to take possession of his imagination. For a moment he tried to picture her house in Paris where his drawing of her would be hung. She had gone away without giving him another thought.

Hennery was saying over and over again, "It was a turrible night . . . something happened in the house too. The Devil sure was on the rampage."

He stood there, staring out of the window, suffering from a curious, sick feeling of having been deserted. "By what? By whom?" he asked himself. "Not by Lily Shane, surely, on whom I had no claims . . .