Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/445

 spoken her name, and it was on his lips now in an agony of tenderness and appeal, "Don't! You mustn't speak like that!"

"I'm tired," she said. "I—I can't fight any more."

She did not cry. She lay there in his arms quite still—like a weary child.

The minutes passed. When Jimmie Dale spoke again it was irrelevantly—and his face was very white:

"Marie, describe the upper floor of that house over there for me."

She roused herself with a start.

"The upper floor?" she repeated slowly. "Why—why do you ask that?"

"Have you forgotten in turn?" he said, with a steady smile. "That money in the safe—it's yours—we can at least save that out of the wreck. You only drew the basement plan and the first floor for the Magpie—the more I know about the house the better, of course, in case anything goes wrong. Now, see, try and be brave—and tell me quickly, for I must get through before the Magpie comes, and I have barely half an hour."

"No, Jimmie—no!" She slipped out of his arms. "Let it alone! I am afraid. Something—I—I have a feeling that something will happen."

"It is the only way." He said it involuntarily, more to himself than to her.

"Jimmie, let it alone!" she said again.

"No," he said. "I am going—so tell me quickly. Every minute that we wait is one that counts against us."

She hesitated an instant—and then, speaking rapidly, made a verbal sketch of the upper portion of the house for him.

"It's a very large house, isn't it?" he commented innocently—to pave the way for the question, above all others, that he had to ask. "Which is your uncle's, I mean that man's room?"

"The first on the right, at the head of the landing," she answered. "Only, Jimmie, don't—don't go!"

He drew her close to him again.