"Go on, boys," he cried, sitting erect, with a wave of his hand to the others. "I 'll catch up within half a mile. I 've got a word to say first to this precious dove fluttering here." He struck the flank of his horse, causing the sensitive beast to quiver, his own lips curling maliciously. The girl, panting between parted lips, never lowered her eyes from his face, and the steady look angered him.
"Still hunting for Winston?" he questioned, sneeringly. "Well, I can inform you where he may very easily be found."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, out at the 'Little Yankee.' It seems you were a trifle late in getting him word, or else your fascinations failed to move him. You must be losing your grip."
She neither moved nor spoke, her eyes—dark, unwinking beneath the wide hat-brim—telling him nothing. Yet her hand closed upon the pearl handle hidden away in the jacket pocket, and her lips formed a straight line.
"I 'm damned sorry you did n't land the fellow, Lizzie," he went on brutally. "He 's about the best catch you 're liable to get, and besides, it leaves me a rather unpleasant job. Still, I thought I 'd better tell you, so you would n't feel it necessary to hang around the streets here any longer. Fact is, I 'm anxious to shield your reputation, you know." He looked about carelessly, his glance settling on the open doors of the Gayety. "Don't strike me this is exactly the sort of place for one of your moral respectability to be discovered in. Lord! but what would the old man or that infernal prig of a brother of yours say, if they could only see you now? A monologue artist at the Gayety was bad enough, but this, this is the limit."
There was a flash of something white and glittering within six inches of his face, a sharp click, and an eye looked directly into his own across a short steel barrel.
"Go!" The word was like the spat of a bullet.
"But, Lizzie—"
"Go, you cur! or, as God is my witness, if you stay I'll kill you!"