Page:Henry rideout--The siamese cat.djvu/95

 "That's what I like. You don't make excuses and—and that, but just own up nice and squarely."

"So it's all right?" said Owen. They faced each other, radiantly. Flies hummed in the tense, quivering stillness. "Then I'll do it again—for another reason—"

His tone was dangerous. Laura started on, quickly; they turned the little promontory of a ruin; and what he wished and feared to say was forgotten.

It was here that the flies were humming. Close under the wall, half covered by vines burnt hard as wire, a man sprawled prone—the Chinaman, dead, with a clotted knife-wound in the back.

Owen whipped in before the girl.

"You can't do anything here," he commanded. "Let me. Wait round the corner there."

With a queer catch in her breath, she obeyed.