“Not a chance!” exclaimed Dick lightly. “That sheriff will comb the town. But he will never come into your bedroom, honey. And I’m going to stay here till the flurry is over.”
He took a step into the room. Betty shrank from him. Her eyes were now aflame—and there was something besides fear in them.
“I will give you time to get out, Andy Wilkenson,” she said hoarsely. “But no more. All I have to do is to raise this window and scream——”
“Dare to!” he snapped. “I’ll stay right here. You’re my wife——”
“Nobody will believe that if I deny it!” she exclaimed.
“So you think I can’t prove it?” He laughed again. “I know that you would deny it if you could. I know that you even tore up the marriage certificate that old minister gave you. But I went back to him and got a copy. And I have got a copy of the license record, and all. Think I’m a fool? You may have fooled me about your aunt’s money; but one never knows when such a moment as this may come. If you give me up to the sheriff, I’ll tell ’em all just who and what you are. Mrs. Andy Wilkenson! Sounds good, don’t it? And ‘Andy Wilkenson’ is Dick Beckworth. Being married under an assumed name don’t make the tie any less binding, Betty. You are married to me hard and fast, and I’m going to turn the fact to good account. Don’t doubt it!”
“I—I’ll call my brother,” said Betty weakly.
“I bet he doesn’t know, either. Nor that Joe Hurley you’ve been chumming around with,” and Dick chuckled hugely. “Oh, I’ve got you, my girl. You had the chance to call me, and call me good, that time. But it’s my turn now. You are going to hide me here, and then help me get away. I know your breed. You’d die rather than let the story of our marriage get to the people of Canyon Pass.”
The girl sat huddled in the chair by the window. She stared at him with an intensity of horror that seemed to have paralyzed her whole body. And what he said—his final declaration—she knew was true.
She would much rather die than have it revealed to all Canyon Pass that Dick the Devil was the discarded husband of the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt’s sister!