"
A hard and bitter smile showed on her mouth. "Yours! Loved you!" she
cried. "My God! You!"
Her unmistakable, unconcealed scorn was like a dagger thrust in the
heart, and that stab of pain stirred his anger and restored him to
himself. His face went almost purple, his cold eyes blazed. "Say," he
cried roughly, "what are you driving at, anyway? Come down to cases
now." He caught her by the wrist. "What did you let me come up here for?
Just to make a monkey of me? Have you been treasuring spite against me
all these months, and is this your way of getting even?"
She dragged her hand away from him and stepped back. "I let you come, if
you want to know it, because I thought I was in love with you. Lord,
think of it!" she laughed drearily. "I haven't fooled you any worse than
I have myself."
He rubbed his hand across his eyes. "It ain't true," he said loudly,
positively, defiantly.
"Hush," she exclaimed, darting forward. "What was that?" There was a
sound as if some one had trod the underbrush not many feet away. She
listened intently a moment, a wild fear at her heart that Seagreave
might have returned unexpectedly. It was probably some animal, for there
was no further sound. "Oh," she cried, in involuntary relief, "it must
have been Jose!"
A gleam came into his eyes, a light of triumph as at the remembrance of
some potent weapon of which he had been carelessly forgetful. "And who
is Jose?" he asked.
She lifted her startled gaze to his, the question recalled to her her
own unthinking speech.
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