Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/204

 everything about her, as he had seen a rose-tinted stage-light alter and enrich the canvas and tinsel of a Broadway playhouse.

He saw her take a long and troubled breath, look up at him, and once more look away. The hum and whir of his electric fan was the only sound in the cabin.

"I don't think either of us has been quite honest with the other," she said, compelling herself to meet his puzzled gaze.

"I know—and I'm sorry," he replied, puzzling her again by his note of humanity.

"I've told you an untruth," she said at last, taking another deep breath.

"In what way?" asked McKinnon.

"I lied to you, when Ganley and you were in my cabin. I can't let it go on. I can't endure the thought of this lie standing between us like—oh, like a quicksand that can never be crossed."

"But what is it?" asked the other.

She looked up at him again, very steadily and very bravely.

"I told you that my husband was dead," she answered in her low and constrained voice. "He is not dead."

"He is not dead?" echoed McKinnon.

"I said that he died of yellow fever. He took the fever and was ill with it. But he did not