nk, and I put you
under the pump and--'

"'Yes, I know you thought so--I intended you should. I heard every word
that you said, and what little Gretchen said--dear little Gretchen, I
had studied it all out, and to play drunk seemed the best way to get at
the brute, and it was; they'd have proved it on me if I hadn't fooled
them that way--' and again his eyes snapped and his face flushed as the
humor of the situation rose in his mind. 'You'll forgive me, won't you?
Don't tell Gretchen.' The light in his eyes was gone now. I'd rather
she'd think me drunk than vulgar, and it was vulgar, and maybe cowardly,
to hit him, but I couldn't help that either, and I'm not sorry I did
it.'

"'But I locked you in,' I persisted. Was this some invention of his
fertile imagination, or was it true?

"'Yes, you locked the door,' he answered, as he broke into a subdued
laugh. 'I dropped from the window sill when it got dark--it wasn't high,
about fifteen feet, and the waterspout helped--ran down the back way,
gave him a crack as he opened the door, and was back in bed by the help
of the same spout before he had come to. He was leaving the next day
and it was my only chance. I wasn't out of the room five minutes--maybe
less. You'll forgive me that too, won't you?'"

Marny stopped and looked into the smouldering coals. For a brief instant
he did not speak. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room, took
the miniature from the wall where he had hung it and looked at it
steadily.

"What a delightful devil you were, Fiddles. And you were so human."

"Is he living yet?" I asked.

"No, he died in Gretchen's arms. I kept my promise, and two months
later went back to the village to bring him to America with me, but a
forester's bullet had ended him. It was on the Baroness's grounds, too.
He wouldn't halt and the guard fired. Think of killing such an adorable
savage--and all because the blood of the primeval man boiled in his
veins. Oh, it was damnable!"

"And you know nothing more about him? Where he came from?" The story had
strangely moved me. "Were there no letters or notebooks? Nothing to show
who he really was?"

"Only an empty envelope postmarked 'Berlin.' This had reached him the
day before, and was sealed with a coat of arms in violet wax."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***

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