Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/183

 sense of unlooked-for and undefined conspiracies beyond conspiracies, of bewildering and inscrutable forces at play all about him.

"Is this true?" he demanded of the woman before him.

His question was almost a prayer for its own denial. He could see that the scene through which she had passed had sorely taxed her strength. She was no longer a girl, but a woman who had known and confronted life.

"Is this true?" he repeated, and even as he asked it he felt that whatever part she might be playing in that crowded drama he would in the end be compelled to stand by her.

"No," whispered the woman, white to her lips. "It is not true."

"Have you a husband?"

"No," she still answered in her low voice. The monosyllable was emotionless, yet he could see by her face that she was suffering.

Ganley laughed outright. It was not a pleasant laugh.

"And you never married a mangy, half-caste diamond-wearing Santo Domingan named De Perralta?" demanded the man on the berth edge.

"I married a man named Perralta," answered the woman slowly, her unwavering eyes on McKinnon as she spoke.