Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/143



ILLIAM stared down at the writing while a dozen conflicting emotions possessed him. Ruth Warren's photograph, torn into fragments and thrown carelessly into a waste-basket, here in Naples, thousands of miles from home. "This is the girl." A sinister phrase.

All the little puzzling angles in her attitude came back with a rush, each clearly defined; her evident alarm over his discovery that she was a school-teacher, the somberness of her gaze toward the sea, her aloofness, her prayer, her lack of interest in the mail department at Cook's. His heart was swept by savage anger, only to give way to great tenderness. She was all alone. She had run away, and it was now patent that she was being pursued. By whom and for what? Was it the contents of the chamois bag? He swore under his breath. He did not care who she was or what she had done; she was the woman he loved.

William was Irish; but on the other hand he possessed Teutonic doggedness in pursuing an object, in adhering to a plan of action. Come ill, then, come good, always, had she need of him, would she find him.