Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/312

292 "Then that woman lied to me!" I called out to him.

"What woman?" he evaded. But his eye no longer seemed able to meet mine.

"Copperhead Kate," I said, and into that name I threw all the scorn I could command. For I hated her now, more than ever. And for the first time in my life I saw a hang-dog expression on Bud Griswold's face. He looked like a sheep-killer on the morning after. And he knew that look was there. He tried to hide it by shuffling to one side, on the pretense of more directly confronting Wendy Washburn, who all this time was standing silent and studious behind me.

"Then it was that woman who worked the ropes for your pardon, or your parole, or your commutation, or whatever it was?" I declared, with the double-edged spear-head of jealousy cutting my soul in two. And there was excuse enough, I suddenly saw, for all those vague old suspicions which had once yelped in my heart like hunting-dogs in an express-car.

"I didn't come here to talk about that woman," was Bud's unexpectedly blunt retort.

"Then what did you come for?" I demanded.