"Well, you got your nerve with you." But Delaney obeyed.
When Dudley got his number and Carmelita's almost hysterical voice came rushing over the wire, after he had told her where he was, though not why, he was glad he had taken the precaution to lure the officer out of earshot. She was excited, almost incoherent, and he had difficulty gathering from her torrent of words that she would be right down.
An hour later he looked up from his sitting posture on his rude bunk at the sound of feet shuffling outside to find the grinning Delaney standing beside Carmelita. The sight of her white face, the dark circles under her eyes, her general appearance of wretchedness filled him with fear and tenderness.
She had not slept the night before. Fortunate in not meeting a soul in her wild flight from the scene of the shooting, she had had barely strength enough to struggle up to her bedroom. There she had paced the floor practically all night, interrupting her nervous walking at intervals to fling herself upon the bed in a vain attempt to sleep or to sink into the chair in front of her dressing table and, turning her half-nude back around, gaze with fresh terror upon the cruel mark of the indignity she had suffered, the inflamed Bengal tiger seal of Rao-Singh that seemed burning
