“Why?”
“I told you. Because you're still good at heart. You've only been wild.... Because—”
“Are you the wife of Kells?” he flashed at her.
A reply seemed slowly wrenched from Joan's reluctant lips. “No!”
The denial left a silence behind it. The truth that all knew when spoken by her was a kind of shock. The ruffians gaped in breathless attention. Kells looked on with a sardonic grin, but he had grown pale. And upon the face of Cleve shone an immeasurable scorn.
“Not his wife!” exclaimed Cleve, softly.
His tone was unendurable to Joan. She began to shrink. A flame curled within her. How he must hate any creature of her sex!
“And you appeal to me!” he went on. Suddenly a weariness came over him. The complexity of women was beyond him. Almost he turned his back upon her. “I reckon such as you can't keep me from Kells—or blood—or hell!”
“Then you're a narrow-souled weakling—born to crime!” she burst out in magnificent wrath. “For however appearances are against me—I am a good woman!”
That stunned him, just as it drew Kells upright, white and watchful. Cleve seemed long in grasping its significance. His face was half averted. Then he turned slowly, all strung, and his hands clutched quiveringly at the air. No man of coolness and judgment would have addressed him or moved a step in that strained moment. All expected some such action as had marked his encounter with Luce and Gulden.