Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/265

 quick lifting of the brows. He turned again to feast his eyes on the girl's piquant face, even more alluring now because of the fleeting color that left the cheeks with a tea rose's coldness.

"Miss Gerson, something I have done or said"—the man was laboring after words—"you are not yourself, and maybe I am respon"

She turned from him with a slight shudder. Her hand was extended in mute appeal for silence. He waited while his eyes followed the heaving of her shoulders under the emotion that was racking her. Suddenly she faced him again, and words rushed from her lips in an abandon of terror:

"Captain Woodhouse, I know too much—about you and why you are here. Oh, more than I want to! Accident—bad luck, believe me, it is not my seeking that I know you are a—a"

He had started forward at her outburst, and now he stood very close to her, his gray eyes cold and unchanging.

"Say it—say the word! I'm not afraid to hear it," he commanded tensely. She drew back