Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/261

 have been given and received, to bring about so new a course of action. There was the sound of a light switch being snapped on, the grate of a key turning in a lock, and the door of the printing-room was suddenly thrown open.

This was followed by a silence of several seconds, and then from the startled girl came a cry, low in note, yet shot through with a timbre which caused a small thrill to speed through Kestner's crouching body.

"Carlesi!"

She repeated the word more quietly, as though it were balm to her breast, as though she were hugging to her soul some truth which could never be taken away from her.

Kestner could see nothing. He no longer had any definite idea as to their positions. But he knew they were talking in Italian now, volubly, excitedly, feverishly. She was assailing him with anxious questions and demands. His answers, at times, seemed equivocal and circuitous. He kept hedging and contradicting himself, but by sheer force of will she was finally wringing the truth from him, forcing from his reluctant lips a confirmation of what Morello had already told her.

It was only brokenly that Kestner could follow the hurrying interplay of their talk. But he gathered that Carlesi had opened his shirt-front and was showing the girl a bullet scar there, the scar which she herself had made.

Then Kestner became instinctively aware of the fact that Carlesi's manner had changed. What caused