With his arm about her, he crossed the room, turned the key in the lock, and threw open the door, behind which Jessica stood.


[CHAPTER XXXVI.]

Did you ever observe the devilish glare in the eyes of a caged hyena, the fiendish, cat-like grin upon his repulsive mouth when he knows he is denied the prey he covets? There is no other animal in captivity or out that has the same expression of countenance, the same half-cringing, diabolical treachery both in face and the sidelong movement of his body.

Just such an expression Jessica wore when Leith threw open the door which separated him from her. There was no other egress from the room than through that door or he would not have found her there; but she came forward after a moment of profoundest silence throwing up her head defiantly, the hateful grin receiving sound in a discordant laughter.

"Well," she exclaimed, lightly, approaching the mantel-shelf carelessly and taking up the gloves she had thrown there, "I have played—and lost. Others have done so before, better players than I, too, perhaps. You think you will escape the crime you have committed? Ha! ha! A forged telegram to a minion of the law is not a difficult thing, and I shall know how to discover the forgery. My hand is not quite played out, you see. Because Miss de Barryos loved the murderer of her former lover is no reason why he should escape the punishment of his crime. She has evidently been as anxious to pay out her money to have him escape as she once was to secure his conviction, but even forged telegrams are traceable, and I shall know where to find him when I want him."

"You will not have far to look," said Leith quietly.

"If it were to the ends of the earth, I should find you and your half-breed wife, your—"

"Silence!" exclaimed Leith, the first gleam of anger coming to his eyes. "Not a word of disrespect to her. As for myself, I do not care. You are so powerless as to be almost pitiable. I understand perfectly the detestable part you have played—the false friend, endeavoring to poison the mind of innocence, the serpent creeping through the grass at nightfall in your effort to work harm and ruin. I have known all along that you were striving to harm Miss de Barryos, from the very first day that I met her under your disreputable roof."

Jessica laughed aloud—a laugh that would have slain had the power been given her.