Persons Unknown Part 61

"Yes," said Christina, "but it was _such_ a thrilling point! I'd worked so much further up into an accused murderess than I'd ever gone before, and I did so long to know how it would feel--"

An aghast laugh silenced her. It rang about the room, it swept with gay and topsy-turvy cleansing through every heart and blew the cobwebs far away. The air was cleared for good and all. No more shudders skulked in emotional underbrush. Christina Hope had quite too positively reappeared.

"Christina, you she-devil!" Denny cried. But he bent his black head with the words and kissed her hand. There were tears that were like wors.h.i.+p in the teasing, jeering smile that lit his eyes.

Christina caught his hand and stood up, flus.h.i.+ng. Her eyes traveled round the table and came back to Herrick's face. He had never seen her thus bathed in rosy color before she sobered again to that meek gravity, like a good child's.

"Very well, then, very well--there I am! Well, take me as I am! I will--myself! I will say, let's get down to it, then: the dearest or most terrible experience I ever had is none too terrible or too dear for Bryce's play! Is yours, Will? Is your own, Bryce? Ah, and then, we zealous ones, when we want to know the hardest, hardest, pa.s.sive part, the loneliest suffering, the simplest courage, the deepest depths, we needn't experiment, we can humbly inquire--we can ask Nancy Cornis.h.!.+"

THE END