Макс Брэнд
Ronicky Doone
Chapter Twelve
The Strange Bargain
Ronicky drew his gun and waited. "Good," said the man of the sneer. "Go ahead."
"It was down in the cellar that we found the first tracks. He came in through the side window and closed it after him."
"That dropped him into the coal bin. Did he get coal dust on his shoes?"
"Right; and he didn't have sense enough to wipe it off."
"An amateur—a rank amateur! I told you!" said the man of the sneer, with satisfaction. "You followed his trail?"
"Up the stairs to the kitchen and down the hall and up to Harry's room."
"We already knew he'd gone there."
"But he left that room again and came down the hall."
"Yes. The coal dust was pretty well wiped off by that time, but we held a light close to the carpet and got the signs of it."
"And where did it lead?"
"Right to this room!"
Ronicky stepped from among the smooth silks and pressed close to the door of the closet, his hand on the knob. The time had almost come for one desperate attempt to escape, and he was ready to shoot to kill.
A moment of pause had come, a pause which, in the imagination of Ronicky, was filled with the approach of both the men toward the door of the closet.
Then the man of the sneer said: "That's a likely story!"
"I can show you the tracks."
"H'm! You fool, they simply grew dim when they got to this door. I've been here for some time. Go back and tell them to hunt some more. Go up to the attic and search there. That's the place an amateur would most likely hide."
The man growled some retort and left, closing the door heavily behind him, while Ronicky Doone breathed freely again for the first time.
"Now," said the man of the sneer, "tell me the whole of it, Ruth."
Ronicky set his teeth. Had the clever devil guessed at the truth so easily? Had he sent his follower away, merely to avoid having it known that a man had taken shelter in the room of the girl he loved?
"Go on," the leader was repeating. "Let me hear the whole truth."
"I—I—" stammered the girl, and she could say no more.
The man of the sneer laughed unpleasantly. "Let me help you. It was somebody you met somewhere—on the train, perhaps, and you couldn't help smiling at him, eh? You smiled so much, in fact, that he followed you and found that you had come here. The only way he could get in was by stealth. Is that right? So he came in exactly that way, like a robber, but really only to keep a tryst with his lady love? A pretty story, a true romance! I begin to see why you find me such a dull fellow, my dear girl."
"John—" began Ruth Tolliver, her voice shaking.
"Tush," he broke in as smoothly as ever. "Let me tell the story for you and spare your blushes. When I sent you for Harry Morgan you found Lochinvar in the very act of slugging the poor fellow. You helped him tie Morgan; then you took him here to your room; although you were glad to see him, you warned him that it was dangerous to play with fire—fire being me. Do I gather the drift of the story fairly well? Finally you have him worked up to the right pitch. He is convinced that a retreat would be advantageous, if possible. You show him that it is possible. You point out the ledge under your window and the easy way of working to the ground. Eh?"
"Yes," said the girl unevenly. "That is—"
"Ah!" murmured the man of the sneer. "You seem rather relieved that I have guessed he left the house. In that case—"
Ronicky Doone had held the latch of the door turned back for some time. Now he pushed it open and stepped out. He was only barely in time, for the man of the sneer was turning quickly in his direction, since there was only one hiding place in the room.
He was brought up with a shock by the sight of Ronicky's big Colt, held at the hip and covering him with absolute certainty. Ruth Tolliver did not cry out, but every muscle in her face and body seemed to contract, as if she were preparing herself for the explosion.
"You don't have to put up your hands," said Ronicky Doone, wondering at the familiarity of the face of the man of the sneer. He had brooded on it so often in the past few days that it was like the face of an old acquaintance. He knew every line in that sharp profile.
"Thank you," responded the leader, and, turning to the girl, he said coldly: "I congratulate you on your good taste. A regular Apollo, my dear Ruth."
He turned back to Ronicky Doone. "And I suppose you have overhead our entire conversation?"
"The whole lot of it," said Ronicky, "though I wasn't playing my hand at eavesdropping. I couldn't help hearing you, partner."
The man of the sneer looked him over leisurely. "Western," he said at last, "decidedly Western.
"Are you staying long in the East, my friend?"
"I dunno," said Ronicky Doone, smiling faintly at the coolness of the other. "What do you think about it?"
"Meaning that I'm liable to put an end to your stay?"
"Maybe!"
"Tush, tush! I suppose Ruth has filled your head with a lot of rot about what a terrible fellow I am. But I don't use poison, and I don't kill with mysterious X-rays. I am, as you see, a very quiet and ordinary sort."
Ronicky Doone smiled again. "You just oblige me, partner," he replied in his own soft voice. "Just stay away from the walls of the room—don't even sit down. Stand right where you are."
"You'd murder me if I took another step?" asked the man of the sneer, and a contemptuous and sardonic expression flitted across his face for the first time.
"I'd sure blow you full of lead," said Ronicky fervently. "I'd kill you like a snake, stranger, which I mostly think you are. So step light, and step quick when I talk."
"Certainly," said the other, bowing. "I am entirely at your service." He turned a little to Ruth. "I see that you have a most determined cavalier. I suppose he'll instantly abduct you and sweep you away from beneath my eyes?"
She made a vague gesture of denial.
"Go ahead," said the leader. "By the way, my name is John Mark."
"I'm Doone—some call me Ronicky Doone."
"I'm glad to know you, Ronicky Doone. I imagine that name fits you. Now tell me the story of why you came to this house; of course it wasn't to see a girl!"
"You're wrong! It was."
"Ah?" In spite of himself the face of John Mark wrinkled with pain and suspicious rage.
"I came to see a girl, and her name, I figure, is Caroline Smith."
Relief, wonder, and even a gleam of outright happiness shot into the eyes of John Mark. "Caroline? You came for that?" Suddenly he laughed heartily, but there was a tremor of emotion in that laughter. The perfect torture, which had been wringing the soul of the man of the sneer, projected through the laughter.
"I ask your pardon, my dear," said John Mark to Ruth. "I should have guessed. You found him; he confessed why he was here; you took pity on him—and—" He brushed a hand across his forehead and was instantly himself, calm and cool.
"Very well, then. It seems I've made an ass of myself, but I'll try to make up for it. Now what about Caroline? There seems to be a whole host of you Westerners annoying her."
"Only one: I'm acting as his agent."
"And what do you expect?"
"I expect that you will send for her and tell her that she is free to go down with me—leave this house—and take a ride or a walk with me."
"As much as that? If you have to talk to her, why not do the talking here?"
"I dunno," replied Ronicky Doone. "I figure she'd think too much about you all the time."
"The basilisk, eh?" asked John Mark. "Well, you are going to persuade her to go to Bill Gregg?"
"You know the name, eh?"
"Yes, I have a curious stock of useless information."
"Well, you're right; I'm going to try to get her back for Bill."
"But you can't expect me to assent to that?"
"I sure do."
"And why? This Caroline Smith may be a person of great value to me."
"I have no doubt she is, but I got a good argument."
"What is it?"
"The gun, partner."
"And, if you couldn't get the girl—but see how absurd the whole thing is, Ronicky Doone! I send for the girl; I request her to go down with you to the street and take a walk, because you wish to talk to her. Heavens, man, I can't persuade her to go with a stranger at night! Surely you see that!"
"I'll do that persuading," said Ronicky Doone calmly.
"And, when you're on the streets with the girl, do you suppose I'll rest idle and let you walk away with her?"
"Once we're outside of the house, Mark," said Ronicky Doone, "I don't ask no favors. Let your men come on. All I got to say is that I come from a county where every man wears a gun and has to learn how to use it. I ain't terrible backward with the trigger finger, John Mark. Not that I figure on bragging, but I want you to pick good men for my trail and tell 'em to step soft. Is that square?"
"Aside from certain idiosyncrasies, such as your manner of paying a call by way of a cellar window, I think you are the soul of honor, Ronicky Doone. Now may I sit down?"
"Suppose we shake hands to bind the bargain," said Ronicky. "You send for Caroline Smith; I'm to do the persuading to get her out of the house. We're safe to the doors of the house; the minute we step into the street, you're free to do anything you want to get either of us. Will you shake on that?"
For a moment the leader hesitated, then his fingers closed over the extended hand of Ronicky Doone and clamped down on them like so many steel wires contracting. At the same time a flush of excitement and fierceness passed over the face of John Mark. Ronicky Doone, taken utterly by surprise, was at a great disadvantage. Then he put the whole power of his own hand into the grip, and it was like iron meeting iron. A great rage came in the eyes of John Mark; a great wonder came in the eyes of the Westerner. Where did John Mark get his sudden strength?
"Well," said Ronicky, "we've shaken hands, and now you can do what you please! Sit down, leave the room—anything." He shoved his gun away in his clothes. That brought a start from John Mark and a flash of eagerness, but he repressed the idea, after a single glance at the girl.
"We've shaken hands," he admitted slowly, as though just realizing the full extent of the meaning of that act. "Very well, Ronicky, I'll send for Caroline Smith, and more power to your tongue, but you'll never get her away from this house without force."
Chapter Thirteen
Doone Wins
A servant answered the bell almost at once. "Tell Miss Smith that she's wanted in Miss Tolliver's room," said Mark, and, when the servant disappeared, he began pacing up and down the room. Now and then he cast a sharp glance to the side and scrutinized the face of Ronicky Doone. With Ruth's permission, the latter had lighted a cigarette and was smoking it in bland enjoyment. Again the leader paused directly before the girl, and, with his feet spread and his head bowed in an absurd Napoleonic posture, he considered every feature of her face. The uncertain smile, which came trembling on her face, elicited no response from Mark.
She dreaded him, Ronicky saw, as a slave dreads a cruel master. Still she had a certain affection for him, partly as the result of many benefactions, no doubt, and partly from long acquaintance; and, above all, she respected his powers of mind intensely. The play of emotion in her face—fear, anger, suspicion—as John Mark paced up and down before her, was a study.
With a secret satisfaction Ronicky Doone saw that her glances continually sought him, timidly, curiously. All vanity aside, he had dropped a bomb under the feet of John Mark, and some day the bomb might explode.
There was a tap at the door, it opened and Caroline Smith entered in a dressing gown. She smiled brightly at Ruth and wanly at John Mark, then started at the sight of the stranger.
"This," said John Mark, "is Ronicky Doone."
The Westerner rose and bowed.
"He has come," said John Mark, "to try to persuade you to go out for a stroll with him, so that he can talk to you about that curious fellow, Bill Gregg. He is going to try to soften your heart, I believe, by telling you all the inconveniences which Bill Gregg has endured to find you here. But he will do his talking for himself. Just why he has to take you out of the house, at night, before he can talk to you is, I admit, a mystery to me. But let him do the persuading."
Ronicky Doone turned to his host, a cold gleam in his eyes. His case had been presented in such a way as to make his task of persuasion almost impossible. Then he turned back and looked at the girl. Her face was a little pale, he thought, but perfectly composed.
"I don't know Bill Gregg," she said simply. "Of course, I'm glad to talk to you, Mr. Doone, but why not here?"
John Mark covered a smile of satisfaction, and the girl looked at him, apparently to see if she had spoken correctly. It was obvious that the leader was pleased, and she glanced back at Ronicky, with a flush of pleasure.
"I'll tell you why I can't talk to you in here," said Ronicky gently. "Because, while you're under the same roof with this gent with the sneer"—he turned and indicated Mark, sneering himself as he did so—"you're not yourself. You don't have a halfway chance to think for yourself. You feel him around you and behind you and beside you every minute, and you keep wondering not what you really feel about anything, but what John Mark wants you to feel. Ain't that the straight of it?"
She glanced apprehensively at John Mark, and, seeing that he did not move to resent this assertion, she looked again with wide-eyed wonder at Ronicky Doone.
"You see," said the man of the sneer to Caroline Smith, "that our friend from the West has a child-like faith in my powers of—what shall I say—hypnotism!"
A faint smile of agreement flickered on her lips and went out. Then she regarded Ronicky, with an utter lack of emotion.
"If I could talk like him," said Ronicky Doone gravely, "I sure wouldn't care where I had to do the talking; but I haven't any smooth lingo—I ain't got a lot of words all ready and handy. I'm a pretty simple-minded sort of a gent, Miss Smith. That's why I want to get you out of this house, where I can talk to you alone."
She paused, then shook her head.
"As far as going out with me goes," went on Ronicky, "well, they's nothing I can say except to ask you to look at me close, lady, and then ask yourself if I'm the sort of a gent a girl has got anything to be afraid about. I won't keep you long; five minutes is all I ask. And we can walk up and down the street, in plain view of the house, if you want. Is it a go?"
At least he had broken through the surface crust of indifference. She was looking at him now, with a shade of interest and sympathy, but she shook her head.
"I'm afraid—" she began.
"Don't refuse right off, without thinking," said Ronicky. "I've worked pretty hard to get a chance to meet you, face to face. I busted into this house tonight like a burglar—"
"Oh," cried the girl, "you're the man—Harry Morgan—" She stopped, aghast.
"He's the man who nearly killed Morgan," said John Mark.
"Is that against me?" asked Ronicky eagerly. "Is that all against me? I was fighting for the chance to find you and talk to you. Give me that chance now."
Obviously she could not make up her mind. It had been curious that this handsome, boyish fellow should come as an emissary from Bill Gregg. It was more curious still that he should have had the daring and the strength to beat Harry Morgan.
"What shall I do, Ruth?" she asked suddenly.
Ruth Tolliver glanced apprehensively at John Mark and then flushed, but she raised her head bravely. "If I were you, Caroline," she said steadily, "I'd simply ask myself if I could trust Ronicky Doone. Can you?"
The girl faced Ronicky again, her hands clasped in indecision and excitement. Certainly, if clean honesty was ever written in the face of a man, it stood written in the clear-cut features of Ronicky Doone.
"Yes," she said at last, "I'll go. For five minutes—only in the street—in full view of the house."
There was a hard, deep-throated exclamation from John Mark. He rose and glided across the room, as if to go and vent his anger elsewhere. But he checked and controlled himself at the door, then turned.
"You seem to have won, Doone. I congratulate you. When he's talking to you, Caroline, I want you constantly to remember that—"
"Wait!" cut in Ronicky sharply. "She'll do her own thinking, without your help."
John Mark bowed with a sardonic smile, but his face was colorless. Plainly he had been hard hit. "Later on," he continued, "we'll see more of each other, I expect—a great deal more, Doone."
"It's something I'll sure wait for," said Ronicky savagely. "I got more than one little thing to talk over with you, Mark. Maybe about some of them we'll have to do more than talking. Good-by. Lady, I'll be waiting for you down by the front door of the house."
Caroline Smith nodded, flung one frightened and appealing glance to Ruth Tolliver for direction, then hurried out to her room to dress. Ronicky Doone turned back to Ruth.
"In my part of the country," he said simply, "they's some gents we know sort of casual, and some gents we have for friends. Once in a while you bump into somebody that's so straight and square-shooting that you'd like to have him for a partner. If you were out West, lady, and if you were a man—well, I'd pick you for a partner, because you've sure played straight and square with me tonight."
He turned, hesitated, and, facing her again, caught up her hand, touched it to his lips, then hurried past John Mark and through the doorway. They could hear his rapid footfalls descending the stairs, and John Mark was thoughtful indeed. He was watching Ruth Tolliver, as she stared down at her hand. When she raised her head and met the glance of the leader she flushed slowly to the roots of her hair.
"Yes," muttered John Mark, still thoughtfully and half to himself, "there's really true steel in him. He's done more against me in one half hour than any other dozen men in ten years."
Chapter Fourteen
Her Little Joke
A brief ten minutes of waiting beside the front door of the house, and then Ronicky Doone heard a swift pattering of feet on the stairs. Presently the girl was moving very slowly toward him down the hall. Plainly she was bitterly afraid when she came beside him, under the dim hall light. She wore that same black hat, turned back from her white face, and the red flower beside it was a dull, uncertain blur. Decidedly she was pretty enough to explain Bill Gregg's sorrow.
Ronicky gave her no chance to think twice. She was in the very act of murmuring something about a change of mind, when he opened the door and, stepping out into the starlight, invited her with a smile and a gesture to follow. In a moment they were in the freshness of the night air. He took her arm, and they passed slowly down the steps. At the bottom she turned and looked anxiously at the house.
"Lady," murmured Ronicky, "they's nothing to be afraid of. We're going to walk right up and down this street and never get out of sight of the friends you got in this here house."
At the word "friends" she shivered slightly, and he added: "Unless you want to go farther of your own free will."
"No, no!" she exclaimed, as if frightened by the very prospect.
"Then we won't. It's all up to you. You're the boss, and I'm the cow-puncher, lady."
"But tell me quickly," she urged. "I—I have to go back. I mustn't stay out too long."
"Starting right in at the first," Ronicky said, "I got to tell you that Bill has told me pretty much everything that ever went on between you two. All about the correspondence-school work and about the letters and about the pictures."
"I don't understand," murmured the girl faintly.
But Ronicky diplomatically raised his voice and went on, as if he had not heard her. "You know what he's done with that picture of yours?"
"No," she said faintly.
"He got the biggest nugget that he's ever taken out of the dirt. He got it beaten out into the right shape, and then he made a locket out of it and put your picture in it, and now he wears it around his neck, even when he's working at the mine."
Her breath caught. "That silly, cheap snapshot!"
She stopped. She had admitted everything already, and she had intended to be a very sphinx with this strange Westerner.
"It was only a joke," she said. "I—I didn't really mean to—"
"Do you know what that joke did?" asked Ronicky. "It made two men fight, then cross the continent together and get on the trail of a girl whose name they didn't even know. They found the girl, and then she said she'd forgotten—but no, I don't mean to blame you. There's something queer behind it all. But I want to explain one thing. The reason that Bill didn't get to that train wasn't because he didn't try. He did try. He tried so hard that he got into a fight with a gent that tried to hold him up for a few words, and Bill got shot off his hoss."
"Shot?" asked the girl. "Shot?"
Suddenly she was clutching his arm, terrified at the thought. She recovered herself at once and drew away, eluding the hand of Ronicky. He made no further attempt to detain her.
But he had lifted the mask and seen the real state of her mind; and she, too, knew that the secret was discovered. It angered her and threw her instantly on the aggressive.
"I tell you what I guessed from the window," said Ronicky. "You went down to the street, all prepared to meet up with poor old Bill—"
"Prepared to meet him?" She started up at Ronicky. "How in the world could I ever guess—"
She was looking up to him, trying to drag his eyes down to hers, but Ronicky diplomatically kept his attention straight ahead.
"You couldn't guess," he suggested, "but there was someone who could guess for you. Someone who pretty well knew we were in town, who wanted to keep you away from Bill because he was afraid—"
"Of what?" she demanded sharply.
"Afraid of losing you."
This seemed to frighten her. "What do you know?" she asked.
"I know this," he answered, "that I think a girl like you, all in all, is too good for any man. But, if any man ought to have her, it's the gent that is fondest of her. And Bill is terrible fond of you, lady—he don't think of nothing else. He's grown thin as a ghost, longing for you."
"So he sends another man to risk his life to find me and tell me about it?" she demanded, between anger and sadness.
"He didn't send me—I just came. But the reason I came was because I knew Bill would give up without a fight."
"I hate a man who won't fight," said the girl.
"It's because he figures he's so much beneath you," said Ronicky. "And, besides, he can't talk about himself. He's no good at that at all. But, if it comes to fighting, lady, why, he rode a couple of hosses to death and stole another and had a gunfight, all for the sake of seeing you, when a train passed through a town."
She was speechless.
"So I thought I'd come," said Ronicky Doone, "and tell you the insides of things, the way I knew Bill wouldn't and couldn't, but I figure it don't mean nothing much to you."
She did not answer directly. She only said: "Are men like this in the West? Do they do so much for their friends?"
"For a gent like Bill Gregg, that's simple and straight from the shoulder, they ain't nothing too good to be done for him. What I'd do for him he'd do mighty pronto for me, and what he'd do for me—well, don't you figure that he'd do ten times as much for the girl he loves? Be honest with me," said Ronicky Doone. "Tell me if Bill means anymore to you than any stranger?"
"No—yes."
"Which means simply yes. But how much more, lady?"
"I hardly know him. How can I say?"
"It's sure an easy thing to say. You've wrote to him. You've had letters from him. You've sent him your picture, and he's sent you his, and you've seen him on the street. Lady, you sure know Bill Gregg, and what do you think of him?"
"I think—"
"Is he a square sort of gent?"
"Y-yes."
"The kind you'd trust?"
"Yes, but—"
"Is he the kind that would stick to the girl he loved and take care of her, through thick and thin?"
"You mustn't talk like this," said Caroline Smith, but her voice trembled, and her eyes told him to go on.
"I'm going back and tell Bill Gregg that, down in your heart, you love him just about the same as he loves you!"
"Oh," she asked, "would you say a thing like that? It isn't a bit true."
"I'm afraid that's the way I see it. When I tell him that, you can lay to it that old Bill will let loose all holds and start for you, and, if they's ten brick walls and twenty gunmen in between, it won't make no difference. He'll find you, or die trying."
Before he finished she was clinging to his arm.
"If you tell him, you'll be doing a murder, Ronicky Doone. What he'll face will be worse than twenty gunmen."
"The gent that smiles, eh?"
"Yes, John Mark. No, no, I didn't mean—"
"But you did, and I knew it, too. It's John Mark that's between you and Bill. I seen you in the street, when you were talking to poor Bill, look back over your shoulder at that devil standing in the window of this house."
"Don't call him that!"
"D'you know of one drop of kindness in his nature, lady?"
"Are we quite alone?"
"Not a soul around."
"Then he is a devil, and, being a devil, no ordinary man has a chance against him—not a chance, Ronicky Doone. I don't know what you did in the house, but I think you must have outfaced him in some way. Well, for that you'll pay, be sure! And you'll pay with your life, Ronicky. Every minute, now, you're in danger of your life. You'll keep on being in danger, until he feels that he has squared his account with you. Don't you see that if I let Bill Gregg come near me—"
"Then Bill will be in danger of this same wolf of a man, eh? And, in spite of the fact that you like Bill—"
"Ah, yes, I do!"
"That you love him, in fact."
"Why shouldn't I tell you?" demanded the girl, breaking down suddenly. "I do love him, and I can never see him to tell him, because I dread John Mark."
"Rest easy," said Ronicky, "you'll see Bill, or else he'll die trying to get to you."
"If you're his friend—"
"I'd rather see him dead than living the rest of his life, plumb unhappy."
She shook her head, arguing, and so they reached the corner of Beekman Place again and turned into it and went straight toward the house opposite that of John Mark. Still the girl argued, but it was in a whisper, as if she feared that terrible John Mark might overhear.
* * * * *
In the home of John Mark, that calm leader was still with Ruth Tolliver. They had gone down to the lower floor of the house, and, at his request, she sat at the piano, while Mark sat comfortably beyond the sphere of the piano light and watched her.
"You're thinking of something else," he told her, "and playing abominably."
"I'm sorry."
"You ought to be," he said. "It's bad enough to play poorly for someone who doesn't know, but it's torture to play like that for me."
He spoke without violence, as always, but she knew that he was intensely angry, and that familiar chill passed through her body. It never failed to come when she felt that she had aroused his anger.
"Why doesn't Caroline come back?" she asked at length.
"She's letting him talk himself out, that's all. Caroline's a clever youngster. She knows how to let a man talk till his throat is dry, and then she'll smile and tell him that it's impossible to agree with him. Yes, there are many possibilities in Caroline."
"You think Ronicky Doone is a gambler?" she asked, harking back to what he had said earlier.
"I think so," answered John Mark, and again there was that tightening of the muscles around his mouth. "A gambler has a certain way of masking his own face and looking at yours, as if he were dragging your thoughts out through your eyes; also, he's very cool; he belongs at a table with the cards on it and the stakes high."
The door opened. "Here's young Rose. He'll tell us the truth of the matter. Has she come back, Rose?"
The young fellow kept far back in the shadow, and, when he spoke, his voice was uncertain, almost to the point of trembling. "No," he managed to say, "she ain't come back, chief."
Mark stared at him for a moment and then slowly opened a cigarette case and lighted a smoke. "Well," he said, and his words were far more violent than the smooth voice, "well, idiot, what did she do?"
"She done a fade-away, chief, in the house across the street. Went in with that other gent."
"He took her by force?" asked John Mark.
"Nope. She slipped in quick enough and all by herself. He went in last."
"Damnation!" murmured Mark. "That's all, Rose."
His follower vanished through the doorway and closed the door softly after him. John Mark stood up and paced quietly up and down the room. At length he turned abruptly on the girl. "Good night. I have business that takes me out."
"What is it?" she asked eagerly.
He paused, as if in doubt as to how he should answer her, if he answered at all. "In the old days," he said at last, "when a man caught a poacher on his grounds, do you know what he did?"
"No."
"Shot him, my dear, without a thought and threw his body to the wolves!"
"John Mark! Do you mean—"
"Your friend Ronicky, of course."
"Only because Caroline was foolish are you going to—"
"Caroline? Tut, tut! Caroline is only a small part of it. He has done more than that—far more, this poacher out of the West!"
He turned and went swiftly through the door. The moment it was closed the girl buried her face in her hands.
