“What is the matter?” she asked anxiously. “Has something happened?”
Just one moment he paused, and, coming toward her, laid his hands on hers tenderly.
“Nothing the matter at all,” he said soothingly. “At least nothing that need worry you. It is just a matter of pressing business. I’m sorry to have to go from you for a little while, but it is necessary. I cannot explain to you until I return. You will trust me? You will not worry?”
“I will try!”
Her lips were quivering, and her eyes were filled with tears. Again he felt that intense longing to lay his lips upon hers and comfort her, but he put it from him.
“There is nothing to feel sad about,” he said, smiling gently. “It is nothing tragic only there is need for haste, for if I wait, I may fail yet—— It is something that means a great deal to me. When I come back I will explain all.”
“Go!” she said, putting out her hands in a gesture of resignation, as if she would hurry him from her. And though she was burning to know what it all meant there was that about him that compelled her to trust him and to wait.
Then his control almost went from him. He nearly took those hands in his and kissed them, but he did not. Instead, he went with swift steps to his bedroom door, threw open a chiffonier drawer, and took therefrom something small and sinister. She could see the gleam of its polished metal, and she sensed a strange little menace in the click as he did something to it, she could not see what, because his back was to her. He came out with his hand in his pocket, as if he had just hidden something there.
She was not familiar with firearms. Her mother had been afraid of them and her brother had never flourished any around the house, yet she knew by instinct that some weapon of defence was in Gordon’s possession; and a nameless horror rose in her heart and shone from her blue eyes, but she would not speak a word to let him know it. If he had not been in such haste, he would have seen. Her horror would have been still greater if she had known that he already carried one loaded revolver and was taking a second in case of an emergency.
“Don’t worry,” he called as he hurried out the door. “Henry will get anything you need, and I shall soon be back.”