I, coming in later than you, merely saw the
Florentine chair in position. All else in my view of the reflection
appertained to the actual present, into which the long-ago past was then
rapidly merging. But you, coming in a few moments sooner, and being far
more _en rapport_ with the spirit of the scene, saw the tall man in a
red cloak--whom you call the Avenger--strangling the girl. By the way,
why do you call him the Avenger?"
"Because," said Helen, slowly, "there was murder in the cruel face of
the woman, and there was a dagger in her hand. She had struck her blow
before he appeared upon the scene. I know this, because it was the flare
of his crimson cloak, as he rushed in, which first caught my eye, in the
firelight, and made me look into the mirror at all. Before that I was
intent on Ronnie. The Avenger seized the woman from behind; I saw his
brown hands on the whiteness of her throat. Grief and horror were on his
face, as he looked over her shoulder, and past the chair, at the
prostrate heap upon the floor."
"Which heap," said Dick, trying to speak lightly, "was our poor Ronnie."
"No," said Helen, gazing straight before her into the fire, "the heap
upon the floor was _not_ Ronnie."
"But--I am positive!--I saw it myself! I saw you kneeling beside it. I
helped to sort it, afterwards. The actual heap on the floor was the
broken chair, Ronnie mixed up with it; and, on top of both, that unholy
Infant, whose precocious receptivity is responsible for the entire
business.
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