"Gone!" she murmured in a dead, colourless way--and suddenly laughed out
sharply, hysterically.
"Don't! For God's sake, don't do that!" he pleaded wildly.
She looked at him then for a moment in strange quiet--and lifted her
hand and stroked his face in a numbed way.
"It--it would have been better, Jimmie, wouldn't it," she said in the
same monotonous voice, "it would have been better if--if I had never
found out anything, and they--they had done the same to me that they did
to--to father."
"Marie! Marie!" It was the first time he had ever spoken her name, and
it was on his lips now in an agony of tenderness and appeal. "Don't! You
mustn't speak like that!"
"I'm tired," she said. "I--I can't fight any more."
She did not cry. She lay there in his arms quite still--like a weary
child.
The minutes passed. When Jimmie Dale spoke again it was
irrelevantly--and his face was very white:
"Marie, describe the upper floor of that house over there for me."
She roused herself with a start.
"The upper floor?" she repeated slowly. "Why--why do you ask that?"
"Have YOU forgotten in turn?" he said, with a steady smile. "That money
in the safe--it's yours--we can at least save that out of the wreck. You
only drew the basement plan and the first floor for the Magpie--the
more I know about the house the better, of course, in case anything goes
wrong.
Pages:
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587