“Don’t, Jim; for God’s sake, don’t! You’re hurting me! I—I couldn’t help it; I couldn’t stop her!”
The abject, terrified appeal in his eyes; the fawning, doglike subjection of his manner, enraged Carrington. He shook the little man with a force that racked the other from head to heel.
“Where did she go—damn you!”
“To the Arrow.”
Aroused to desperation by the flaming fury that blazed in Carrington’s eyes, Parsons tried to wrench himself free, tugging desperately, and whining: “Don’t, Jim!” For he knew that he was to be punished for his dereliction.
He shrieked when Carrington struck him; a sound which died in his throat as the blow landed. Carrington left him lie where he fell, and went out to the men, interrogating the one he had seen on the front porch.
From that person he learned that no one had left the house since the men had come; so that Carrington knew Marion must have departed soon after he had left the night before—or some time during the time of his departure and the arrival of the men.
Ten minutes after emerging from the house he went in again. Parsons was sitting on the floor of his room, swaying weakly back and forth, whining tonelessly, his lips loose and drooling blood.
For an instant Carrington stood over him, looking down at him with a merciless, tigerlike grin. Then he stooped, gripped Parsons by the shoulders, and, lifting him bodily, threw him across the bed. Parsons did not resist, but lay, his arms flung wide, watching the big man fearfully.
“Don’t hit me again, Jim!” he pleaded. “Jim, I’ve never done anything to you!”