Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/164

 were there, and so naturally I was surprised to find you here, and—and—" he stammered again, paused, shifted uneasily in his seat, tried to meet Varge's eyes, and then flung out nervously: "Curse it, why do you look at me like that! Don't look at me like that, I tell you!"

No muscle of Varge's face moved, save a slight contraction around the corners of his lips that gave an added sternness to the grim, set expression already there. When he spoke it was without raising his voice, and the quiet evenness of his tones might almost have been mistaken for nonchalance.

"You knew that after I left the hospital I was made a trusty and since then have been working here?"

"Yes," said Merton sullenly; "I knew it. Why?"

"You were here yesterday?"

"No."

"The day before?"

"Yes."

"The day before that?"

Merton hesitated—met Varge's eyes an instant—and the denial on his lips became an affirmative snarl.

"You have been coming then in the daytime when you thought I was away—otherwise, since I have been a trusty, your visits have been in the evenings—is that it?"

Merton made no answer.

"Get down from that seat and come here into the stall!" Varge ordered abruptly.

"What for?" demurred Merton.

"Because," said Varge curtly, "it will be just as well