All its weary, careless indifference had vanished.
As he lay back his hands loosed their hold of his coat and fell away
all bloody. The knife slid to the floor. A crimson froth flecked his
lips.
"Oh--Heaven! You were--stabbed!" gasped Allie, sinking to her knees.
"If Stanton doesn't come in time--tell her what happened--ask her to
fetch Neale to you," he said. He spoke with extreme difficulty and a
fluttering told of blood in his throat. Allie could not speak. She
could not pray. But her sight and her perception were abnormally
keen. Ancliffe's strange, dear gaze rested upon her, and it seemed
to Allie that he smiled, not with lips or face, but in spirit. How
strange and beautiful.
Then Allie heard a rush of silk at the door. It opened--closed. A
woman of fair face, bare of arm and neck, glittering with diamonds,
swept into the parlor. She had great, dark-blue eyes full of shadows
and they flashed from Ancliffe to Allie and back again.
"What's happened? You're pale as death! ... Ancliffe! Your hands--
your breast! ... My God!"
She bent over him. "Stanton, I've been--cut up--and Hough is--dead."
"Oh, this horrible Benton!" cried the woman.
"Don't faint ... Hear me. You remember we were curious about a girl
--Durade had in his place. This is she--Allie Lee.
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