Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/255

 "Why?"

"My business is with Carlesi," was her uncompromising retort.

"And also with me"

"It will never again be with you." Her voice shook with a tremolo of restrained passion.

"Don't be too sure of that."

"I'm sure now of only one thing."

"Are you?" he mocked.

"That's of your life-time of lying and cheating and cowardice, of your utter baseness."

"And you're through with all that?" he taunted.

"I'm through with all that," she passionately maintained.

"Don't be too sure of yourself," he suddenly cried out to her. "You're in the mess as deep as I am. You're marked, and you know it. And you can't get away from this town any easier than I can."

There was almost a note of weariness in her reply. "I have got away from you."

"No, you haven't. And you're not going to. You've tried that before, and it never worked. It never will work."

It was words like these, Kestner suddenly remembered, that Morello himself had used to the girl.

"This time I think it will.… I came here to see Carlesi."

Lambert forced a laugh. It was not a mirthful one.

"Then you've started a little late. Carlesi's been dead for just seven years."

"Why should you lie to me—now?" she asked,