“I didn’t want to see you—I wanted to get out of that room—after what I’ve been through.”
She leaned dizzily against the wall, and breathed like a runner at the end of a race. The situation she had just been through had, indeed, taxed her full strength; but her mind went on to dangers yet ahead. That girl with the marriage certificate in her hand—she had held back because she was waiting a better time, and a more effective method, to strike. And when she struck, she would strike hard—no doubt of that! Mary wondered in what form of cold fury the girl’s natural feminine vindictiveness would express itself.
She opened her eyes. Peter Loveman was still waiting beside her.
“I guess I didn’t quite get the situation when I broke in on that scene awhile ago,” the little man began apologetically. “I thought it was all up with you—and I thought I might as well save myself if I could.”
“I know,” she said wearily. And then vigor came into her voice and bearing. “But don’t forget this, Peter Loveman,—if you ever try to cross me again, I’ll finish you off with Mr. Morton just as I said—even though I finish myself, too!”
“That’s never going to happen, Mary,” the little man said propitiatingly. “And remember, Mary, what I said to you this morning—that if this affair gives any sign of going wrong, just privately leave your end of it with me—and after that let me manage you—and there’s nothing I can’t do with you! Nothing!”
She regarded him absently—although the vision his words had created registered itself in her subconscious mind as something that might come to pass in the future. Without answering him, she turned away and reëntered her apartment. Beside her door she came to a sudden pause. Bending over her desk was Mr. Morton intently working over something which she could not identify. But the next moment she knew. Mr. Morton had recovered from the waste-basket her torn letter and was fitting its fragments together.
Instantly she was across the room, and had caught his arm. “Mr. Morton, you mustn’t do that!” she exclaimed, reaching swiftly for the letter.
He easily warded off her clutching hand. She struggled to possess the fragments. But he was too powerful a man for her to contest with on equal physical terms, and she dared not cry out—so after a moment she gave up.
“Really, Miss Gilmore, you know, you can’t trust a man’s curiosity too far,” he said coolly, though pleasantly; and holding her two wrists in a powerful, yet gentle grip, he read the torn letter through.