Page:Henry rideout--The siamese cat.djvu/248

 The edges of the cockle-shell began slowly to gape.

"Love me, love my dog," said Owen suddenly, looking up. "That holds, even with a Siamese cat. Laura.…"

His voice trembled. Both had turned a little pale, and the girl, studying the broad squares of stone, would have drawn away. But they stood now at the outermost verge; and as he continued speaking, she could find no way of escape. The moist wind fluttered her skirts. The dark waves of the Mediterranean, mother sea of our anxious western world, danced towards them from the sunset.

Something tinkled at their feet. In their happy trouble and confusion, they glanced down.

Ho Kong had fooled them one and all, had played his own hand, and lost; for there on the warm-lighted granite shone a pebble brighter