“RAOUL! RAOUL!”
Madame Violette’s cry expressed misery, fright, warning. Madame Moonshine was cringing against the wall in sudden fear. Lorenzo Brayton’s face went white and his lower jaw sagged, and it seemed as though he would collapse utterly because of the menace of the weapon the boy held, its muzzle toward him, and because of the look of murder in the boy’s face.
“My boy!”
Madame Violette was thoroughly alive to the situation in an instant. In a flash she saw the crime, an arrest, a long and expensive trial and the misery of waiting for the verdict. She hurled herself upon her son, upon the weapon he held, so that he could not fire for fear of wounding her. The tension snapped, for the boy could not maintain it for long. A great sob came from him, and he dropped the revolver to th
