"Please--go--now--"
"To-morrow at the station, then. Eleven. There's a train every hour for
Greenwich."
He was all tan to her now, standing there like a blur.
"Yes, Morton, I'll be there. If--please--you'll go now."
"Of course," he said. "Late. Only I--Well, paying the taxi--strapped
me--temporarily. A ten spot--old Hat--would help."
She gave him her purse, a tiny leather one with a patent clasp. Somehow
her fingers were not flexible enough to open it.
His were.
There were a few hours of darkness left, and she sat them out, exactly
as he had left her, on the piano stool, looking at the silence.
Toward morning quite an equinoctial storm swept the city, banging
shutters and signs, and a steeple on 122d Street was struck by
lightning.
And so it was that Hattie's wedding day came up like thunder.
GUILTY
To the swift hiss of rain down soot-greasy window panes and through a
medley of the smells of steam off wet overcoats and a pale stench
of fish, a judge turned rather tired Friday-afternoon eyes upon the
prisoner at the bar, a smallish man in a decent-enough salt-and-pepper
suit and more salt than pepper in his hair and mustache.
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