Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/158

 John read the note twice, crumpled it in his hand, and walked slowly down Geary Street to Market and down Market Street to the ferry.

In the second act that night he forgot to take on the knife with which he was to stab his victim, and nearly spoiled the scene, through having to strangle him instead.

"Stage the scene and play it out for you?" What could she mean by that.

Determined to find out, John hurried from the theater at the close of the performance, with his lips pursed stubbornly, and at exactly twelve o'clock Julie was answering his ring at the door of the little apartment on Turk Street.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, smiling cordially. "It is the big man again. No, Madame is not in. She is having supper out to-night. With whom? La! la! I should not tell you that," and Julie shrugged one shoulder only, after a way of hers, and made a movement to close the door; but something in John's eyes induced her to add, with both sympathy and chiding in her tone: "You must not come to see Madame when Madame does not want you."

"But I must see her, Julie!" John pleaded huskily, rather throwing himself upon the mercy of the little French woman.

Julie gazed at him doubtfully. She had fended off the attentions of many an importunate suitor from her beautiful mistress but never one who engaged at once so much of her sympathy and respect as he. In her mind she was weighing something; reflecting perhaps whether it was not kindness to this big, earnest man to let his own eyes serve him. Her decision was evidently in the affirmative.

"If you go quickly to the entrance of Antone's," she