..and on....
IV
Gora decided that blunt callousness would help him more than sympathy. He
had recovered his self-control, but his eyes were still wide with pain and
horror.
"Cremation is a clean honest finish for any one," she remarked, lighting
another cigarette and offering him her match. "I should have left her if
she had been my sister in that first house...."
"I might have done it--in London. But...perhaps I was not quite myself....I
couldn't leave her to be burned alone in a strange country. Besides, the
horror of it would have killed my mother. Marian was the youngest. I felt
bound to do my best....Perhaps I didn't think at all....If this house is
threatened I shall take her out to the Presidio, where I happen to know a
man--Colonel Norris. Thanks to your hospitality I can make it."
"But naturally you cannot go very fast...and these sentries...I am not
sure....I don't see how you escaped others...the smoke and excitement, I
suppose....I think if you are determined to take her it would be better if
I helped you to carry her out to the cemetery. We can put her on a narrow
wire mattress and cover her, so that it will look as if we were rescuing an
invalid. Out there you can put her in one of the stone vaults. Some of the
doors are sure to have been broken by the earthquake."
The young man, who had given his name as Richard Gathbroke, gratefully
rested in her brother's room while she kept watch on the roof.
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