There was implacable purpose in his strangely quiet,
unhurried accents. Magda recognised it—recognised
that death was very close to her. It would be
useless to scream. Before help could come—if
anyone heard her cries, which was unlikely—Dan
would have accomplished what he meant to do.
In the last fraction of time these thoughts flashed
through her mind. Her brain seemed to be working
with abnormal clarity and speed. This was death,
then—unavoidable, inevitable.
She felt Dan’s hand creep upward, closing round
her throat. Quite suddenly she ceased to struggle
and lay still in his grasp. After all, she didn’t
know that she would much mind dying. Life was
not so sweet. There would be pain, she supposed
. . . a moment’s agony. . . .
All at once, Storran’s hands fell away from
her passive, silent body and he stepped back.
“I can’t do it!” he muttered hoarsely.
“I can’t do it!”
For a moment the suddenness of her release left Magda
swaying dizzily on her feet. Then her brain clearing,
she looked across to where Dan Storran’s big
figure faced her. The nonchalance with which she
usually met life, and with which a few moments earlier
she had been prepared to face inevitable death, stood
by her now. A faint, quizzical smile tilted her
mouth.
“So you couldn’t do it after all, Dan?”
The familiar note of half-indifferent mockery sounded
in her voice.
Storran stared at her. “By God! I
don’t believe you are a woman!” he exclaimed
thickly.
She regarded him contemplatively, her hands lightly
touching the red marks scored by his fingers on the
whiteness of her throat.
“Do you know,” she replied dispassionately,
“I sometimes wonder if I am? I don’t
seem to have—feelings, like other women.
It doesn’t matter to me, really, a bit that
I’ve—what was it you said?—smashed
up your life. I don’t know that it would
have mattered much if you had strangled me.”
She paused, then stepped towards him. “Now
you know the truth. Do you still want to kill
me, Dan Storran! . . . Or may I go?”
He swung aside from her.
“Go!” he muttered sullenly. “Go
to hell!”
THE DAY AFTER
“Magda, how could you?” Gillian’s
voice was full of blank dismay. “You ought
to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself!”
Magda perched on the foot of Gillian’s bed,
her hands clasped round her knees, nodded.
“Yes, I suppose I ought. I don’t
know what made me do it—except that he’d
suggested I should leave Stockleigh! I’m
not used to being—shunted!”
“Heaven knows you’re not!” agreed
Gillian ruefully. “It would be a wholesome
tonic for you if you were. I told you only yesterday
that it would be better if we left here. And
on top of that you must needs go and dance in the
moonlight, of all things, while Dan Storran looks on!
What ordinary man is going to keep his head in such
circumstances, do you suppose? Especially when
he was more than half in love with you to start with.
. . . Oh, I should like to shake you!”
