Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/324

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why? Because he feared that when the day of reckoning would come, your hand would tremble ...

"Pull the trigger, Anna. Vindicate the future. The children are waiting for you, and the vineyards, and Marguerite, and Pierre-yes-Pierre. A Nazi stands beside you! Perhaps the same who tortured Gertrude to death, Mary and all and your people.

"Press the trigger. Kill him! Destroy him, and give the Future a chance to be born-like a new-born star! . . . Pull the trigger! Pull . . ."

A dull ring-a short cry-Eric lunged forward and fell headlong into the barbed wire. 

        *  *  *

Anna stood still, pale and thin, watching the flow of life ebb away, spreading slowly over the grass in little red pools that the thirsty earth swallowed up.

Then Eric's body stopped twitching, a broken figure in the tall weeds. She bent over, tenderly wiped the blood from his face. His puzzled eyes stared at the sky glazed with the mystery of death. She closed his eyelids gently and covered him with dusty autumn leaves.

"Forgive me, Eric," she murmured warmly. "There was no other way..."

She stepped backward, awed by the mystery of death. Her eyes blurred. . . the figure dwindled, a black patch in the green weeds, a mere pin-point in empty space-and then it was no more . . .

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