The Other Side of the Door

before any one else was stirring, to slip down to the Washington Street market for some fine fresh mushrooms. He was extravagantly fond of them, but we s

m like a little fête. Then I went a-tiptoe down the stairs that would creak, for I could hear Lee, the China boy, stirring in the kitchen, and it would have spoiled everything to be caught going out with my empty basket. W

et, and in one or two shops the shutters were already down. That made me hurry, for I was afraid of being late. I flew along with my basket in one hand and my flounces in the other. The sunlight had caught the gilt ball on the flagstaff of the Alta California building, and the sky that had been misty was now broad blue abo

e bar and the dark spaces above and below them to suggest that it had an inside. I was just thinking I heard people talking there, when suddenly a sharp splitting noise seemed to ring inside my head, the slatted door

d for an instant he stood, with the pistol smoking in his hand-the handsomest man I ever

er his feet made in the silence. I looked across the street, and blue smoke was drifting out of the slatted door over the

running in a dream. And, strange enough, what filled me with the wildest terror was not the sight of the thing that lay still on the pavement under the drifting smoke, but the sound of those furiously running feet, dying away and away into the s

f me both

atter, child?

atter, child?

out, and my foot was through a torn flounce, and my hat hanging on my neck. My mouth was dry. For a

ed to be in Mr. Dingley's voic

I had a dim impression of Mr. Dingley rushing out of the room with his napkin still in his hand; then I found myself sitti

the silk hat rolling into the gutter, and then that fine terrible gentleman that had sprung out after. The moment had stamped him as clear in my memory as years could have done. I could tell how very tall he was, how dark, how his brows made one black bar across his forehead, how his eyes were set deeply under them, how his chin was wide and keen and his left cheek flicked by a white scar near the mouth. At the time in my

that remained with me was confused, and mixed with wounding pity. For though he had looked so wild I could not remember that he had seemed ferocio

n the same direction. I saw Lee run across the yard and stand peering out of the side gate. I put my hands over my ears, and up and