"Go back to your game, boys!" Langdon commanded, with desperate coolness. "I'll show you the house after a while. Finish your game!"
"The cold-blooded scoundrel!" Ann exclaimed, under her breath. "Not a drop has passed his lips to-night, as much as he likes a dram." She closed the door gently and stood looking about the room. On the edge of the mantel-piece she saw something that gleamed in the dim lamplight, and she went to it. It was a loaded revolver.
"He threatened you with this, didn't he?" Ann asked, holding it before her with the easy clasp of an expert.
"No, he didn't do that," Virginia faltered, "but he told me if—if I made a noise and attracted their attention and caused exposure, he'd kill himself. Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I didn't mean to come here to this room at first. I swear I didn't. He begged me to come as far as the front door to get the money the man had brought back from Darley, then—"
"Then those drunken fools drove up, and he persuaded you to hide here," Ann interrupted, her mind evidently on something else. "Oh, I understand; they played into his hands without knowing it, and it's my private opinion that they saved you, silly child. You can't tell me anything about men full of the fire of hell. You'd 'a' gone out of this house at break of day with every bit of self-respect wrung out of you like water out of a rag. You'd 'a' done that, if I hadn't come."
"Oh, Mrs. Boyd—"
"Don't oh Mrs. Boyd me!" Ann snapped out. "I know what I'm talking about. That isn't the point. The point is getting out to the road without a row and a scandal that will ring half-way round the world. Let a couple of foul-mouthed drummers know a thing like this, and they would actually pay to advertise it in the papers. I tell you, child—"
Ann broke off to listen. The door of the drawing-room seemed to be opened again, and as quickly closed.
"Come on." Ann held the revolver before her. "We've got to make a break for freedom. This ain't no place for a pure young woman. You've got what the highfaluting society gang at Darley would call a chaperon, but she isn't exactly of the first water, according to the way such things are usually graded. Seems like she's able to teach you tricks to-night."
Virginia caught Ann's arm. "You are not going to shoot—" she began, nervously.