And then, as if speaking to herself and not to Alan Holt, she said in a tense whisper: “I have seen this place before. It was a long time ago. Maybe it was a hundred years or a thousand. But I have been here. I have lived under that mountain with the waterfall creeping down it—”
A tremor ran through her, and she remembered Alan. She looked up at him, and he was puzzled. A weirdly beautiful mystery lay in her eyes.
“I must go ashore here,” she said. “I didn’t know I would find it so soon. Please—”
With her hand touching his arm she turned. He was looking at her and saw the strange light fade swiftly out of her eyes. Following her glance he saw Rossland standing half a dozen paces behind them.
In another moment Mary Standish was facing the sea, and again her hand was resting confidently in the crook of Alan’s arm. “Did you ever feel like killing a man, Mr. Holt?” she asked with an icy little laugh.
“Yes,” he answered rather unexpectedly. “And some day, if the right opportunity comes, I am going to kill a certain man—the man who murdered my father.”
She gave a little gasp of horror. “Your father—was—murdered—”
“Indirectly—yes. It wasn’t done with knife or gun, Miss Standish. Money was the weapon. Somebody’s money. And John Graham was the man who struck the blow. Some day, if there is justice, I shall kill him. And right now, if you will allow me to demand an explanation of this man Rossland—”
“No.” Her hand tightened on his arm. Then, slowly, she drew it away. “I don’t want you to ask an explanation of him,” she said. “If he should make it, you would hate me. Tell me about Skagway, Mr. Holt. That will be pleasanter.”