Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/153

 of the left hand were now clamped about her arm. She saw the foolishness of all further evasion, the danger of all quibbling. Still watching him, she slowly raised her hand and held out the sealed manila envelope.

Keudell took possession of it with a clutch of the fingers and a quick backward movement like that of a child jerking a chestnut from an overheated hearth. As he did so Sadie was vaguely concious [sic] of Dorgan's stealthy movement along the room-wall. She had no time to give this much thought, for she saw that Keudell was engaged in an equally absorbing movement. She realized that he was promptly and deliberately tearing open the end of the manila envelope which she had handed to him. And the opening of that envelope, she knew, would bring still another change to the shifting drama.

Sadie leaned forward a little over the table-edge, watching the big blond figure, oddly calm in the presence of a crisis which she knew could no longer be averted. She saw Keudell draw forth the contents of the opened envelope. She saw, even before he unfolded it, that the sheet which he had withdrawn was nothing more than the carefully