Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/260

240 morning it would have been nothing—nothing—it would have been nothing—”

The hoarse voice broke, sob after sob shook the tortured body, and the girl glowed with shame to find herself the useless witness of an agony so supreme. But his tears dried hers and bound their fount; it froze her heart to hear and see him. She was afraid to speak to him, to touch his hand. She withdrew a little, and her bare foot pressed a cold oasis on the warm ground; she stooped and picked up a coin.

“Ha!” cried Tom.

His voice was very bitter now, but under control in a moment.

“Where did it come from?” asked Peggy with the coin to a shining crevice.

“I am ashamed to tell you;” and he ground his teeth; “but you will never guess. From a greater brute than either of the Sullivans. He came to look at me just afterwards. I was steaming like a horse in this blanket, and he came and gloated over me, and flung me a farthing—a farthing!—the very beast who ordered me the lashes and pretended to be so kind.”

“A farth’n’!”

“Yes. God help him if ever I get his yellow throat between these ten fingers!” and they were clutching murderously in the air, and there was murder in every vibration of the husky voice.

“Sure, an’ it isn’t a farth’n’ it is at all.”

“What is it, then?”

“A sov’rin!”

And the soft Irish brogue was rich with honest satisfaction. She showed him the coin in triumph. He regarded it with a leaden eye.