Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/250

 "Then I'll watch your key while you go below," she promptly suggested.

He pondered the problem for a moment or two.

"No, that would only be exposing yourself and inviting danger," she amended. "You must give me the message. I must take it to the engine-room."

"I couldn't see you taking a risk like this," he protested, still puzzling over the problem.

"There's no risk, with me, because no one will suspect. And you must stay with your key."

He lifted his revolver from his bath-robe pocket, after another moment of thought. "Then I want you to take this," he told her, holding it out for her. He noticed her puzzled glance up into his face, and then her quick and unequivocal movement of repudiation. They both knew, as they stood facing each other, that the ever-narrowing apex of the dilemma was crowding up to its final climacteric point.

"I could not use it," she said, shrinking away from the glimmering and intimidating little instrument of death. "I will not even need it."

"Then you must not be seen leaving this station."

"But what will you do—when the power comes?" she asked.