He remembered the names and his mental image of the characters; the novel was glamorous and exciting. He felt such pleasure disengaging himself from the things around him as he read the book; he forget hid room and his house as he continued the story of the two loves. His head rested on the green velvet of the chair with its high back, and he picked up one of the cigarettes near his hand. Beyond the great windows in the late afternoon the wind came through the oak trees in the ark. Word by word, he devoured the story of the sordid dilemma of the hero and heroine. It was the final encounter of the two loves in the mountain cabin. The woman arrived first; worried; then the man came in, his face cut by a tree branch.
She kissed the blood on his cheek, but he pushed her away. He had not come to that cabin in the woods for love or passion, not on this day! He felt the dagger against his chest, underneath it his heart pounded. The dagger would bring freedom to the two of them! The man in the chair read the lustful dialogue, the words raced down the pages. Even as they shared words and caresses, even as they spoke of their love, they also spoke of the other person who it was necessary to destroy. Nothing had been forgotten. They had good alibis; they would not make mistakes. From this hour on,they knew what to do. They reexamined every detail of their plan. It was beginning to get dark.