Had the shock come a few hours
before, he would have taken it differently. He was expecting it then.
He had expected it when he entered McDowell's office the first time. He
was prepared for it afterward. Discovery, failure, and death were
possibilities of the hazardous game he was playing, and he was
unafraid, because he had only his life to lose, a life that was not
much more than a hopeless derelict at most. Now it was different. Mary
Josephine had come like some rare and wonderful alchemy to transmute
for him all leaden things into gold. In a few minutes she had upset the
world. She had literally torn aside for him the hopeless chaos in which
he saw himself struggling, flooding him with the warm radiance of a
great love and a still greater desire. On his lips he could feel the
soft thrill of her good-night kiss and about his neck the embrace of
her soft arms. She had not gone to sleep yet. Across in the other room
she was thinking of him, loving him; perhaps she was on her knees
praying for him, even as he held in his fingers Shan Tung's mysterious
forewarning of his doom.
The first impulse that crowded in upon him was that of flight, the
selfish impulse of personal salvation.
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