Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/213

 in the game for that! You are one of us, and you will stay one of us always!"

"You have nothing to do with what I am, or what I intend to be," was Maura Lambert's defiant retort.

"No, that is already settled. You cannot get away from that, any more than you can get away from me. You came here, thinking I would not find you. And the next morning I am here. And on still the next morning I will be here!"

Kestner found himself unable to combat the sense of uneasiness which rose like a chilling tide through his indignant body. Here was a force that was elemental in its primitiveness, that could not be combated by the ordinary movements of life. And because of that very primitiveness it would always prove doubly perilous. It seemed to reduce everything to the plane of the brute. It was as disconcerting as the discovery of a tigress patrolling a city street. It was a padded Hunger which could be checkmated only by a force as feral as its own.

"My father would kill you for this!" he could hear the frightened girl cry out. And the next moment he could hear Morello's laugh of careless disdain.

"He would kill me, would he? And two days ago he sent me to you, and said just what I have said to-day!"

"That is a lie!" Maura Lambert called out. "You know what happened to Ferrone, two winters ago in Capri! He talked that way, and he went to Corfu with a bullet in his arm! And when Shoenbein insisted on insulting me, as you are doing, my