“Because all those things about him are true, and I thought I’d let yuh know before yuh broke yore heart.”
She searched his face keenly and had to confess to herself that he spoke with absolute sincerity. Her face slowly paled, and for a moment the room seemed to whirl about her. The world appeared peopled with horrible gargoyles that resembled Stelton and that leered and gibbered at her everywhere.
The foreman saw her wince and grow pallid, and his fury was cooled with the ice of fiendish satisfaction. He could hurt her now.
“Because you say so doesn’t prove it to me,” she managed to say at last, though she scarcely recognized the voice that came from her tremulous lips.
“I can give you proof enough if you want it,” he snapped, suddenly taken with an idea. 260
“You can?” The words were pitiful, and her voice broke with the stress of her misery.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Get Smithy Caldwell in here. He knew that lover of yore’s when he wasn’t quite such a sheepman. He’ll tell yuh things that’ll make yore hair stand on end.”
In his delight at his plan Stelton could not keep the exultant cruelty out of his voice.