“What for?”
“I want to make a little love to her. Ha! ha! It'll be fun to have the laugh on her new lover.”
“You lie!” cried Kate Bland.
“I'm not saying what I'll do to her AFTERWARD!” His voice grew hoarser with passion. “Let me go now!”
“No! no! I won't let you go. You'll choke the—the truth out of her—you'll kill her.”
“The TRUTH!” hissed Bland.
“Yes. I lied. Jen lied. But she lied to save me. You needn't—murder her—for that.”
Bland cursed horribly. Then followed a wrestling sound of bodies in violent straining contact—the scrape of feet—the jangle of spurs—a crash of sliding table or chair, and then the cry of a woman in pain.
Duane stepped into the open door, inside the room. Kate Bland lay half across a table where she had been flung, and she was trying to get to her feet. Bland's back was turned. He had opened the door into Jennie's room and had one foot across the threshold. Duane caught the girl's low, shuddering cry. Then he called out loud and clear.
With cat-like swiftness Bland wheeled, then froze on the threshold. His sight, quick as his action, caught Duane's menacing unmistakable position.