"Word that Ben was hurt," he lied. "The east train hit him as it was pullin' in. He's bad off, but the doc says he'll come around if he gets good nursin', an' that's why I've come——"
While he was talking the door burst open and Peggy appeared in the opening, her eyes wide with concern and eagerness.
She had heard Dale's first knock on the door, and knowing it was someone for her—perhaps Ben returning—she had begun to dress, finishing—except for her shoes and stockings—by the time she opened the door.
In the dim light she did not at first see the mask on Dale's face, and she was insistently demanding to be told just where Ben's injuries were, when she detected the fraud.
Then she gasped and stepped back, trying to close the door. She would have succeeded had not Dale thrust a foot into the aperture.
She stamped at his foot with her bare one ineffectually. Dale laughed at her futile efforts to keep him from opening the door. He struck an arm through the aperture, leaned his weight against the door, and pushed it open.
She was at the other side of the room when he entered, having dodged behind a table. He made a rush for her, but she evaded him, keeping the table between them.
There was no word said. The girl's breath was coming in great gasps from the fright and shock she had received, but Dale's was shrill and laboring from the strength of his passions.
Reason left him as they circled around the table, and with a curse he overturned it so that it rolled and crashed out of the way, leaving her with no obstacle behind which to find shelter.
She ran toward the door, but Dale caught her at the threshold. She twisted and squirmed in his grasp, scratching him and clawing at his face in an access of terror, and one hand finally caught the black mask covering and tore it from his face.