Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/124

 kind, so apparently unfitted for the tasks before her, so insidiously appealing in her tender womanhood, a warm and winelike current of sympathy began to creep incongruously through his veins. She must have caught some inkling of that soft invasion, for suddenly, and without apparent reason, her face deepened in colour and then grew paler than before. She held out her hand as though to bridge the awkward silence that had fallen between them. McKinnon saw it was a gesture of farewell.

"Will you promise me to do nothing until I have got this receipt back for you?" she asked as he still held her outstretched hand.

"But why should you fight my battles for me?" he asked, wincing a little before her open and courageous gaze. "I can't have you turn highwayman for me?"

There was welling up in him a wayward sense of guardianship over her isolated and fragile figure, of responsibility for her safety and well-being.

"It must be done," she declared with a bitterness that surprised him a little. "There are two doors to Ganley's cabin. It is one of a suite. I can get in through one of those doors."

"Through one of those doors?" echoed the man before her.

"Yes; to-night."