"You!" she cried. "You are the man who fired that shot!"
CHAPTER XLIX
THE GOVERNOR TAKES A HAND
On the startled silence, already so tense with conflicting forces, the accusation fell with the suddenness of an electric shock.
Its effect on Paddy the Brick was instantaneous. He drew back, his hand clutching at the curtains. He was looking not at Echo, but past her, at the Governor, who had risen towering in his place, and if ever guilt and the dread that is confession showed upon a face, it was written upon his, in lines unmistakable that he who ran might read.
Craig started from his seat. "You fool!" he snarled at him.
But Paddy the Brick gave him no glance. The fear of the hunted was upon him; he saw himself taken in a snare, the witnesses to his unpunished act confronting him, and clutching at him the hand of the Law. He turned, and with one desperate jerk, tore the hangings aside, and with arms before his face, plunged bodily through the shattering glass of the bay-window to the garden.
So abrupt and fateful had been the crash of his headlong flight, that for a breath it seemed as if all there had been turned to stone. Craig first found voice.
"Enough of this farce!" he cried. "Governor Eveland, this man is an escaped convict, and I call upon you to do your duty!"