“We have a right to our happiness,” she argued, passionately. “We have our life, all our life, almost—before us! And I’ve loved you, Jim,” she confessed, her gloved fingers toying with a button on his sleeve, “from the first day MacNutt brought you up!”
Then a silence fell over her, and he could see the reflection of some strange conflict going on in her mind. Although he could perceive the unhappiness it brought to her, he could in no wise surmise the source of it, so that when she spoke again, the suddenness of her cry almost startled him.
“Oh, why didn’t I know you and love you when I was a young and heart-free girl, singing and laughing about my quiet home? Why couldn’t love have come to me then, when all my heart and life were as white as the plain little cambric gown I wore—when I was worthy of it, and could have received it openly, and been glad of it!”
He could not follow her, but, lover-like, he tried to kiss away her vague fears and scruples. In this effort, though, he found her lips so cold and lifeless, that he drew away from her, and looked at her in wonder.
“Is it too late?” he implored, persistently.
CHAPTER IV
For all the calm precision with which Frances Candler had planned and mapped out a line of prompt action with Durkin, she was shaken and nervous and unstrung, as she leaned over the sounder, breathlessly waiting for the rest of the day’s returns to come through on Penfield’s wire.
Durkin, with two thousand dollars of his own and an additional eight hundred from her, had already plunged his limit at Penfield’s lower house, on the strength of her tip over the ’phone. There was still to be one final hazard, with all he held; and at five o’clock they were to meet at Hartley’s restaurant, and from there escape to a new world of freedom and contentment. But the fear of MacNutt still hung over her, as she waited—fear for certain other things besides their secret revolt on the very eve of their chief’s gigantic coup. For she knew what MacNutt could be when he was crossed. So she leaned and waited and watched, listening with parted lips, wishing it was all over with, torn by a thousand indefinite fears.
Then, to her sudden terror, Mackenzie called her up sharply.
“Is that you, Frank?” he cried.