Her eyes were shining with a cold, hard reflection of the ruddy firelight. Her cheeks were drawn by the set of her jaws. Her lips were pressed tight, so that her breathing dilated her delicate nostrils. Annette was never more the untamed half-breed than at that moment. The hot blood in her veins was as full of mad impulse as a freshet in springtime.
But Annette’s passionate mood was not all that the firelight revealed. There was something else. Deep in her soul something was striving for place, something which no resolve could altogether shut out. It was not doubt. It was not weakness. Yet it conveyed something of them both.
Unhappiness? Possibly. Or was it grief? Whatever it was the result was there in a queer dissatisfied frown which marred the even marking of her brows. In another woman that frown would surely have indicated the nearness of tears. But Annette had known no tears since childhood.
But softer emotions were resolutely dealt with. Annette was too surely a young human animal; she was too surely bred of debased and calamitous stock to yield to the gentler spirit of her sex. She was potential for good or evil in just such measure as those who claimed her affections were powerful to influence her. And just now her whole desire was for the man Ernest Sinclair, and to do his bidding.
Sinclair’s bidding! But Annette saw nothing of its enormity. She was blind to everything but the bait which the man had held out to her. Her faith, her credulity, these were the woman in her. Her lack of all scruple was a reaction of the unlovely father she was called upon to betray.
Standing there in the play of the firelight, Annette’s thought flowed on unchecked, unguided. Her frown remained. And that which struggled so vainly for place in her soul continued its impotent striving.
At last her thought settled, and she found herself gazing upon a mental picture of the Wolf. And as she gazed an angry, scornful, half smile drove the frown from her face.
Memory was astir. It was memory of that which had passed between them only that morning. The man’s violence. His hectoring. His disregard of anything she might desire or feel. He was a fool. A vain, crazy fool, whose confidence ran away with him. Well, he would soon learn where his vanity was to lead him.
Penitentiary! She thought of it coldly, grimly. The Wolf. Why not? Oh, it would serve him right. She wondered. What sentence would the Court pass on him when she delivered him into Sinclair’s hands? She remembered the men’s talk when considering their risk. Five years. It had always been of five years in penitentiary.
Five years! They would both get five years. A shiver passed through her body. But she did not pause. Penitentiary for her father had no power to quicken a single pulse beat. He was of no account in her life in spite of his affection for her. But the Wolf was different. The fate of the Wolf could never be a matter of indifference to her. She told herself fiercely that she hated him too much for that. She assured herself of the satisfaction his penalty would give her. She was glad. Very glad. It would break his conceit. It would smash his crazy insolence. It would be the ending of their long drawn-out conflict with victory, complete victory, for her.