"Yes, in ten minutes." He ran out into the hall and down the stair, locking the front door.
Then he returned to his hiding-place under the roof.

He knew that a strange sort of madness was in his blood, for in the face of tonight's tragedy only madness could inspire him with the ecstatic thrill that was in his veins.

Kedsty's death seemed far removed from a more important thing--the fact that from this hour Marette was his to fight for, that she belonged to him, that she must go with him.

He loved her.
In spite of whoever she was and whatever she had done, he loved her.
Very soon she would tell him what had happened in the room below, and the thing would be clear.
There was one little corner of his brain that fought him.

It kept telling him, like a parrot, that it was a tress of Marette's hair about Kedsty's throat, and that it was the hair that had choked him.