"If you do," she repeated, "I will send you after her, Rufus Venner! I will do even more! I will expose our whole game, and our whole gang!"
"I have said that I shall not betray you, nor will I," cried Venner, signing for her to put up the weapon. "Yet you were mad, Sanetta. You had no grounds for such jealousy, no occasion for such a crime."
"I had—and you know it! I told you I would do it."
"Well, you have tried it, at least," growled Venner, forcing a smile to his gray lips.
"And you dare not betray me," repeated Cervera, thrusting the glittering weapon within her dress. "I have not failed entirely, Rufe, since it makes the criminal tie between you and me all the stronger. It binds us together with links of steel, Rufe, and they are stronger far than any marriage contract."
"Then you love me like that, eh?"
"You know that I do."
"Yet your infernal jealousy, and your determination to quit this house and go to the plant with the gang, may yet ruin us all. If Nick Carter were to get a clew—"
"Bah!" Cervera fiercely interrupted. "I despise him, not fear him! I tell you again, I will fool and foil Nick Carter, as I have fooled and foiled his betters!"
"His better as a detective never lived, Sanetta."