Like mad she played,
rocking her slender body back and forth along the key-board; holding
rigid her fingers, her hands, and the muscles of her arms. The bass
notes roared like the rumbling of thunder; the treble flashed like
the dart of lightnings. Abruptly she muted the instrument. Silence
fell as something that had been pent and suddenly released. She
arose from the piano stool quite naturally, both hands at her hair.
"Aren't Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard dear old people?" said she.
"What is your address in New York?" demanded Orde. She sank into a
chair nearby with a pretty uplifted gesture of despair.
"I surrender!" she cried, and then she laughed until the tears
started from her eyes and she had to brush them away with what
seemed to Orde an absurd affair to call a handkerchief. "Oh, you
are delicious!" she said at last. "Well, listen. I live at 12 West
Ninth Street. Can you remember that?" Orde nodded. "And now any
other questions the prisoner can reply to without incriminating
herself, she is willing to answer." She folded her hands demurely
in her lap.
Two days later Orde saw the train carry her away. He watched the
rear car disappear between the downward slopes of two hills, and
then finally the last smoke from the locomotive dissipate in the
clear blue.
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