Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/203

Rh rising suddenly, his hands gripped tensely at his sides. “Damn him!”

She lay back in her chair, relaxed suddenly, panting With exhaustion.

“I’ll go,” he added hoarsely. “I can’t keep up the farce of polite conversation—besides I have some letters to write. Good-night.”

For an hour or more, Delroy sat alone before the fire reading. At last he yawned, laid down his book, arose, and walked to the door. The wind was rising; he could hear it roaring in the trees; and every minute a broad flash of lightning illumined the clouds on the horizon.

“There’s a storm coming,” he said to Thomas, who was nodding at his post. “I wonder where the devil Drysdale went? He’d better be getting in pretty soon.”

As though in answer to the thought, a dark figure appeared suddenly on the walk, strode up the steps, and opened the door. It was Drysdale.

He took off his coat, threw it to Thomas, and went on into the inner hall, where he stood rubbing his hands before the fire, with a face so hopeless, fierce, despairing, that Delroy was fairly startled.

“You may go to bed, Thomas,” he said; then he went to Drysdale and laid a hand upon his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Jack?” he asked. “You’re looking regularly done up.”

Drysdale turned with a start.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Dickie? Where is Grace?”

“Upstairs with my wife.”