Page:Vance--The rass bowl.djvu/266

 A match flared noiselessly and the gas blazed overhead. A cry of astonishment choked in his throat as he recognized his own features duplicated in the face of the man whose throat he was slowly and relentlessly constricting. Anisty! He had not thought of him or connected him with the sounds that had thrilled and alarmed him over the telephone wire coming out of the void and blackness of night. Indeed, he had hardly thought any coherent thing about the matter. The ring of the girl's "No!" had startled him, and he had somehow thought, vaguely, that O'Hagan had surprised her in the flat. But more than that. …

He glanced swiftly aside at the girl standing still beneath the chandelier, the match in one hand burning toward her finger-tips, in the other Anisty's revolver. Their eyes met, and in hers the light of gladness leaped and fell like a living flame, then died, to be replaced by a look of entreaty and prayer so moving that his heart in its unselfish chivalry went out to her.

Who or what she was, howsoever damning the evi-