Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/300

 out—and let her have it out in your arms, Rand. I'll wait here for you until you come down again."

They passed out of the door, Janet in the warden's arms, and Doctor Kreelmar sat down in a chair and stared at the floor. He sat there for a very long time without any movement; then he got down on his knees and began to pick up the chessmen from the carpet. He picked them up very slowly, one at a time—where two lay together he picked them up separately. When they were all picked up, he packed them back in the box, folded up the board, carried box and board to the bookcase, came back to his chair—and stared at the floor again.

After a while, the low murmur of voices reached him from above. The handkerchief, that had never left his hand, mopped suddenly, uncertainly, at his forehead. After another while, a very long while, the warden's steps, dragging, weighted, descending the stairs, came to him. Doctor Kreelmar with a strange little shake of his body, stood up and faced the door.

There was anxiety, confusion, dismay and a smouldering fire in the warden's eyes as he came into the room and dropped heavily into a chair across the table from Doctor Kreelmar.

"Kreelmar," he said hoarsely, "this is awful. Varge came back here to-night to see Janet. It seems he didn't intend to be seen himself—but she saw him. You heard what she said down here—she loves him—she told him so to-night. He loves her. She says that they were going away together—that she persuaded him they must. She was to meet him at the bridge. She came into the house to write that note and get some things,