“Punished!”
The word came home to him with stunning force. The punishment for this crime, if Kate Hallard saw fit to press the matter, was jail!
And Kate Hallard would probably do what he advised.
Sudden fierce exultation leaped into the man’s heart. Beneath his quiet he had been deeply stirred by the encounter with Westcott.
“I wonder how he would like being in jail?” he thought, grimly, and brought himself sternly into line again.
“There ain’t any right of way for me there. I must stop that,” he whispered, the knuckles of his big hands white as wool under the strain of clasping his chair-arms.
The next instant he sat upright, staring out across the hot sand, but seeing only the vision of Helen’s dainty maiden loveliness. The thought of his heart sent the blood from his face.
“I’ve settled my account with Ashley Westcott,” he muttered, “God knows I’ve settled my account; but if that is what he’s aiming to do—”
He shivered, sinking back into his chair. Wing Chang was approaching with a tray of food.
“If that is what it is,” Gard finished to himself, turning to greet the Chinaman, “Then I guess Mr. Ashley Westcott and I will have to open a new account; and he wants to look out.”