Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/391

 "I'd like to be alone with her," he said quite simply. And Sadie's gray face brightened like a sick child's whose broken toy has been glued together. She did not speak for a minute or two as Wilsnach bent over her, pushing back the tumbled hair from her white forehead.

"Have we got 'em?" she finally asked in a whisper.

"Yes, yes—all of them!" was his bitterly impatient reply. His hands dropped, in tragic helplessness, on the stained bedding. "But see what it's cost us!"

Sadie remained silent again, for she could feel the tears that fell so foolishly from Wilsnach's eyes. They puzzled her a little, for he was a man, not given to crying over trifles.

"Then the case is ended?" she said with a great sigh. He could feel the tremor that sped through her body.

"Yes, it's ended," he acknowledged. The thin ghost of a smile played about her lips.

"And I guess I wasn't such a hum-dinger as I thought I was goin' to be!"

He turned his head away, for that wintry smile stabbed him to the heart.