“Call Stanton—quick!” he panted. He thrust gold at her. “Tell no one else!”
Then he opened a door, pushed Allie into a handsomely furnished parlor, and, closing the door, staggered to a couch, upon which he fell. His face wore a singular look, remarkable for its whiteness. All its weary, careless indifference had vanished.
As he lay back his hands loosed their hold of his coat and fell away all bloody. The knife slid to the floor. A crimson froth flecked his lips.
“Oh—Heaven! You were—stabbed!” gasped Allie, sinking to her knees.
“If Stanton doesn’t come in time—tell her what happened—ask her to fetch Neale to you,” he said. He spoke with extreme difficulty and a fluttering told of blood in his throat. Allie could not speak. She could not pray. But her sight and her perception were abnormally keen. Ancliffe’s strange, dear gaze rested upon her, and it seemed to Allie that he smiled, not with lips or face, but in spirit. How strange and beautiful.
Then Allie heard a rush of silk at the door. It opened—closed. A woman of fair face, bare of arm and neck, glittering with diamonds, swept into the parlor. She had great, dark-blue eyes full of shadows and they flashed from Ancliffe to Allie and back again.
“What’s happened? You’re pale as death!... Ancliffe! Your hands—your breast!... My God!”
She bent over him. “Stanton, I’ve been—cut up—and Hough is—dead.”
“Oh, this horrible Benton!” cried the woman.
“Don’t faint... Hear me. You remember we were curious about a girl—Durade had in his place. This is she—Allie Lee. She is innocent. Durade held her for revenge. He had loved—then hated her mother... Hough won all Durade’s gold—and then the girl... But we had to fight... Stanton, this Allie Lee is Neale’s sweetheart... He believes her dead... You hide her—bring Neale to her.”