CHAPTER IX
HEARTS INSURGENT
Seth recovered his revolver, and lunged toward the door. But Claire was before him. She flung herself upon him, clutching the lapels of his coat.
“Seth! Seth!” she shrieked. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll follow him!” he roared. “I’ll follow him! I’ll end the whole thing! I’ll finish it, I tell you!”
“No! No!” she wailed; and clung to him frantically.
He was beside himself, almost incoherent, for the moment quite irresponsible. It is very likely that, but for Claire, he would have mounted a horse and pursued Haig to his ranch, with such consequences as anybody except himself could easily have foreseen. But he was not so far gone in frenzy as to hurt Claire, as he must have done in tearing himself loose from her. He stood a moment in tragic helplessness, grinding his teeth, and hurling muttered imprecations out into the night that covered Philip Haig. Then he looked down at the golden head pressed against his breast, and felt the frail body quivering; and some sense of what he was doing, or was about to do, reached his brain through the fumes of rage. There was yet a long struggle; for he was too ponderous for quick decisions, and at the same time too outright for successful equivocation. Defeat was always a staggering blow to him, since he had no art to 100 mask it. And now, lacking the sagacity to swallow his mortification and to bide his time, he could only suffer, rending himself in lieu of another on whom to pour his fury.
In the midst of this futile passion his roving eyes fell on Marion. She lay where she had fallen, in a dead faint, limp on the red-and-yellow rug. Seth stared at her a full minute, while an indefinable suspicion grew in the back of his brain. She had said, “I’ve brought him here to make peace with you.” And Haig himself had given the lie to that speech! What did it all mean? By God, he would find out!
“Come, Claire!” he said. “Attend to Marion!” And he began to loosen her fingers from his coat.