Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/264

 "That's what I intend to do—cut the whole business out."

Shindler's sneer was not a pretty one.

"That don't make your record over. I guess there's more than me between you and your kid-glove friend!"

It was Sadie's turn to show passion. "No, there ain't! There's no man livin' got a claim on me—exceptin' yuh, and I don't reckon yuh as a man!"

"Well, there's one thing you can reckon on!"

"What's that?"

"That I don't go to Cherbourg."

"Then yuh go up the River to the Big House!"

He looked at her quietly, with the beer-pitcher in his hand. So impassive were their attitudes that an outsider, contemplating them through the window, might have accepted their talk as an exchange of mere conjugal commonplaces. And such, Sadie suddenly remembered, they were—for Shindler's career had been made up of revolt and crime and evasion.

"What'll send me up to the Big House?" he was casually inquiring.

"I may be a purfessional clairvoyant, Abe, but I