Like a ghost, the form at the window was gone without a sound.
With the feel of that cold steel in his hand Ross’s spirits rose like a tide. All his waning confidence returned. He was instantly his own man again, confident, cool, without fear.
Quickly he buckled the belt around his waist. With sure fingers, he made certain that the gun was loaded. Slipping off the safety, he knelt on the table, facing the door, and waited.
Ross did not know whether he would ever leave that room alive, but he did know that the first men to open the door would die.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“YOU’LL SETTLE WITH ME”
Arthur Ward stood with his back to the big living-room fire, his feet wide apart, hands crossed behind his back, head lowered, eyes peering from beneath shaggy brows. It was a characteristic attitude and one which peculiarly expressed the man’s calculated cruelty.
Beebe was seated on the wide fireplace bench, his feet stretched far in front of him. He was slowly smoking, his whole sprawling attitude one of indolent approval. Things were shaping themselves quite to the liking of Larson Beebe.
The girl, Virginia, was seated in a chair somewhat in front of her uncle. The wild look of her eyes and her agitated face told that she was going through an ordeal that was breaking her bit by bit.
“But, Uncle Arthur,” she burst out, “surely you can’t mean to do this terrible thing. Why, I don’t love Mr. Beebe at all. I scarcely know him, and I don’t want to marry anyone.”
“My dear niece,” replied Ward evenly, “love has no part in my scheme of things. Hate rules the world, and hate is my creed. Love makes people soft and indolent. Hate is the great inspirator. Hate makes the world go ’round.