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Page 76
"Can't you see what you force me to do?" he demanded half angrily. "Do
you picture what your denunciation would do for me? Do you think that
I can let you make it?"
His face was so near hers that she could see it clearly in the pallid
light. He could see hers and that it was lifted fearlessly.
"How will you stop me?" she asked quietly.
"I will finish Jim Galloway out of hand," he told her savagely. "It
will no longer be the representative of the law against the lawbreaker;
it will just be Norton and Galloway, both men! I will accomplish the
one other matter I have planned. Both will require not over three or
four days. During that time . . . I tell you, Virginia, I have grown
into a free man, a man who does what he wants to do, who takes what he
wants to take, who is not bound by flimsy shackles of other men's
codes. During those three or four days I shall see that you do no
talking!"
Once more, her voice quickened, she asked:
"How will you stop me?"
"We have come to a deadlock; argument does no good. Either I must
yield to you or you to me. There is too much at stake to allow of a
man being squeamish. I don't care much for the job, but by high Heaven
I am of no mind to watch life run by through the bars of a
penitentiary. After all action becomes simplified when a crisis comes;
doesn't it? There is just one answer, just one way out. You will come
with me, now. I will put you where you will have no opportunity to do
any talking for the few days in which I shall finish what I have to
do." His hand on Persis's rein drew the two horses still closer
together. "Give me your promise, Virginia; or come with me!"
Her quick spurt of anger rose, flared, and dwindled away like a little
flame extinguished by a splash of rain; the tears were stinging her
eyes almost before the last word. For she felt that here was no
Roderick Norton speaking, but rather a bit of bone pressing upon the
delicate machinery which is a man's brain.
"Where would you take me?" she asked faintly.
"To the King's Palace," he answered bitterly. "Where we had one
perfect, happy day, Virginia; where, I had hoped, we would have other
perfect days. Oh, girl, can't you see," and his voice went thrilling
through her, "can't you see what I have hoped, what I have
dreamed. . . ."
"You might still hope," she told him steadily. "You might still dream."
"I will!" His eyes shone at her, his erect form outlined against the
black of the earth and the gleam of the stars was eloquent of mastery.
"There will come a time when you will see life as I see it. . . . And
now, for the last time, will you give me your promise, Virginia? It is
forced upon you; you will be blameless in giving it. Will you do so?"
She only shook her head, her lips trembling, not trusting her
voice. . . . And then, in a sort of daze, she knew that they had
turned off to the left, that no longer was San Juan ahead of them, that
they were riding toward the gloomy bulwark of the mountains.
CHAPTER XX
FLUFF AND BLACK BILL
Fluff and Black Bill were quarrelling.
Elmer, while Norton and Virginia were on their way from San Juan to Las
Estrellas, had dropped in at the hotel to see his sister. He found
upon her office table the card which she always left for him; this
merely informed him that she was "out on a case at Las Estrellas."
Elmer had come for her purposing to suggest a call upon the Engles.
For not yet had he summoned the hardihood to present himself alone at
Florrie's home. Now, disgruntled, seeing plainly that Virginia would
never get back in time, he went out on the veranda and took solace from
the pipe to which he had grown fairly accustomed. To him came the girl
of whom he was thinking. "Hello, Fluff," he said from the shadows.
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