The girl sat down on the edge of the platform. “Then you may go on without me,” she declared, a determined expression on her face. “If you will not go back to the cave, I will.”
“I think not, my dear cousin. You are going with me.” There was a look in his eyes that she had never seen there before.
A shudder ran through the girl’s frame. But she called up her courage as she said: “Have you been lying to me? Did you not tell the truth when you said that you meant no harm to Mr. Cody and Mr. Angell?”
“I told the truth.” But the villain did not meet the girl’s honest eyes as he spoke.
“Then,” said she, “if you don’t go back to the cave, I must put you down as a coward. I despise a coward,” she added, in a voice that made the man wince.
Holmes was in a hole. He had had the faith to believe that he could win and retain the confidence and respect of his lovely cousin. But the time had come when he must either expose his hand or permit her to think that he was showing the white feather. For half an hour no word was spoken by either of them. Then Holmes concluded to drop deception. By so doing there could be no change in her attitude toward himself. Despising him for a coward, she had refused to go on with him; therefore, take whichever horn of the dilemma he might, he would be compelled to use force.
“I am not a coward,” he protested; “and at the same time I am not a fool. I have parted company with Raven Feather and his Navahos. They have served my turn, and I have done with them.” With these words he fastened the platform so that it could not be operated.
Myra Wilton observed the action, and a chill seized her. She waited tremblingly for the next words of the villain.
“I may as well be plain with you,” he went on, as he sat on the platform and faced her. “I had planned a different detail in the game I have been playing. I had hoped to win your consent to become my wife.”
“You never would have obtained it,” she said scornfully.