Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/281

 Wilsnach caught up one of these glasses and ran to the wash-bowl tap on the other side of the room. Water dripped down the sides of the unsteady glass as he hurried back to her.

"Don't you worry about that man," he said, as he tried to hold the glass to her lips.

"But he's dead!" cried out the girl, sitting up straight in her chair.

"Do you call that much loss?" he demanded, as she pushed the glass away from her mouth. About its brim she could still detect a thin odor of beer. It reminded her too much of the past.

She was herself by this time, staring frowningly up into Wilsnach's worried face.

"Do you know what that man was?" he asked, as in answer to her signal he helped her to her feet.

"Yes, I know what he was," Sadie replied, clinging forlornly to Wilsnach's arm. For a moment she was tempted to tell him everything, to cleanse her soul of the secret, to swing wide the door which she had once so dreaded to open.

Yet, looking up at him, she hesitated. It could be done later on, at some other time, when she was surer of his faith in her. For she could not afford to lose that faith of his in her. It was the one thing