THE AWAKENING OF REMORSE.
“Have you done the trick?”
Stone dropped back on the soft cushions of the car and passed his
hands across his eyes. It had been a hasty and disordered flight that
had followed his act, and had carried him down the fire escape. On
reaching the lower platform, he had crawled through the ladder opening
and let himself down and dropped to the pavement of the court. Then he
had sped across the courtyard and out into the side street. There he
had moderated his pace for fear of attracting attention, if a passing
policeman should see him. He had still hurried along, however, blindly
and fearfully, until he saw the waiting machine.
Follansbee’s head had been thrust out of the closed car for a moment
as Stone approached, then the door had been opened, and the miner had
jumped in.
“Where is the syringe?” Follansbee asked.
Stone mechanically thrust his hand into his pocket and withdrew the
leather case. There was a look of satisfaction in the physician’s eyes
as he took charge of his property again.
“I was worried for fear you might have left that behind,” he said, in
his thin voice. “The most careful of us make slips now and then.”
“I made no slip,” came the answer, in a strange voice. “If that thing
was charged with death as you told me, then Winthrop Crawford is
doomed.”
“You need have no fear of the potency of my preparation,” Follansbee
assured him. “From to-night you may look upon yourself as virtually a
millionaire.”
“I don’t care so much about that,” the miner began. “It was——”
His tall, raw-boned form stiffened suddenly, and he drew in a deep,
noisy breath—just such a breath as a man might take when awakened from
a long sleep. He turned swiftly upon the astonished Follansbee, and
the latter involuntarily shrank away. He feared that Stone might do
him some harm, and knew that he was far from a physical match for the
hard-muscled miner.
Nothing was further from Stone’s thoughts, though. His unexpected move
had another meaning. “What was it that made me want to kill my best
friend?” he demanded, in tragic bewilderment.
Quick as a flash the truth burst on Doctor Follansbee. The strain and
intense excitement under which Stone had labored must have wrought a
startling but by no means unprecedented change in his mental condition.
He was indeed a sleeper awakened. It had probably been some subtle
excitement that had unhinged his brain in the first place, and now,
thanks to the law of balance, a more powerful excitement had come near
to bringing him back to his senses.
“What was it? What was it?” the poor fellow gasped, leaning forward and
peering at Follansbee through the half gloom of the limousine. “Why
did I want to kill Win? By heavens, man, speak—speak! There must have
been a reason!”
The strained voice rose almost to a shriek, and Follansbee began to
fear that his companion might attract attention and call down a demand
to stop the car for an investigation. Although it was past three
o’clock in the morning, the streets were not quite empty, for New
York’s streets rarely are. They flashed past a brightly lighted corner,
and the doctor saw the uniformed figure of a policeman pacing slowly
along and looking in their direction. At any moment Stone might burst
out into a storm of self-reproach, and there was no telling to what
lengths his remorse might carry him. It was a situation which required
a master hand, and the way in which Follansbee tackled it was typical
of his shrewdness and lack of conscience.
Instead of attempting to explain to Stone, he leaned forward suddenly
and gave the miner a hearty clap on the shoulder.
“At last!” he ejaculated, in tones of the greatest relief and
satisfaction. “Thank Heaven you’ve come back to your senses.”
He was playing a deep game now, and the way in which the haggard eyes
of his companion turned upon him might have touched his heart had
anything been there to touch.
“Come back to my senses!” Stone repeated uncomprehendingly. “What do
you mean by that?”
Then a great hope flamed up in his eyes. Had Follansbee been merely
humoring him, seeming to fall in with his madness? Had the hypodermic
been harmless after all?