Dangerous Days

"I can come at once. Is anything wrong?"

"Chris has been killed," she replied, and hung up the receiver. Then

she sat down to wait, and to watch for Chris's cynical smile to flash in

some dusky corner.

Clayton found her there, collapsed in her chair, a slim, gray-faced girl

with the rouge giving a grotesque vitality to her bloodless cheeks. She

got up very calmly and gave him the cablegram. Then she fainted in a

crumpled heap at his feet.