Page:Curwood--The Courage of Captain Plum.djvu/263

 Neil's face was blanched to the whiteness of paper.

"She will," he repeated quietly. "Her terrible pact with Strang will have been fulfilled. And I—I am glad—glad—"

He raised his arms to the dripping blackness of the dungeon ceiling, his voice shaking with a cold, stifled anguish. Nathaniel drew back from that tall, straight figure, step by step, as though to hide beyond the flickering candle glow the betrayal that had come into his face, the blazing fire that seemed burning out his eyes. If what Neil had said was true—

Something choked him as he dropped alone upon the bench.

If it was true—Marion was dead!

He dropped his head in his hands and sat for a long time in silence, listening to Neil as he walked tirelessly over the muddy earth. Not until there came a rattling of the chain at the cell door and a creaking of the rusty hinges did he lift his face. It was the jailer with a huge