Chapter 25
IN HIS SIX YEARS with the police he had supped his fill of horrors. Violent death in all its forms was a commonplace of his waking hours. But this tragedy left him dazed and broken.
She had danced for an instant through his life like a butterfly that hovers in a room: her parting kiss was warm on his lips. She had liked him because he was kind to her, perhaps because so few men, in her short stay on earth, had been kind to her except for value received; and because she liked him, she had thrown herself into his defence with all the warm eagerness of her nature. And it had brought her to... this!
That chance remark of his had sent her to her death. Obeying her heart alone, she had asked of him no questions, but only tried to help him; he, on the other hand, had not scrupled to
