Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/158

156 "He's after us," he said. "I know he is. What else should he come for?"

"He says there is that defalcating Italian"

"He says! Jenny, I'd back out of this if Robison would let me. I can't stand it. I can't stand it. But Robison won't lose money, and I'll lose my own if I can't put this through. But I'm afraid"

Jennifer bit her lips.

"Then lose your own," she said. "Let us go out poor so long as we go honest. We can begin again."

"Don't be a little fool." Ducane sat up, pushing the damp hair back from his florid, handsome face. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips unsteady. "What the devil do you know about poverty and disgrace?" he said.

"You know that I don't let you swear to me, Harry."

Ducane moved impatiently.

"Unless Heriot can be squared there won't be much more from us in a little," he said. "Heriot has a long head and a short suit, and he knows how to play his game. I never knew a M. P. who could be squared yet; but you're pretty thick with him. If you could keep him dangling around you this trip, Jenny"

Jennifer looked down that great pale gleam of water that led, link by link, to the Arctic Seas. Ducane was killing her innocent friendship by his coarse thoughts as he had killed so much else.

"And who is to guard Robison? He hasn't a wife," she said.

"Curse Robison." Ducane brought his head close. "I'll get ten years—and likely more—if Heriot catches me," he said.

"And so sure as there is a God you deserve it," said Jennifer.

Ducane sat up as though a cracker had exploded beneath him.

"You—you" he sputtered. "Do you know that you are my wife?"

Jennifer turned her wide, dark eyes on him. The light was faint and warm in her hazy hair.

"Oh, Harry, will you never be a man?" she said sadly.

Ducane was silent. From the upper deck rolled the