Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/190



he only stared gravely up to her with such a sorrow that her heart went cold.

"Nothing—but I've remembered."

"What?"

"It's the cross. It brings luck and bad fortune together. Mary, I'll throw it away, now—and then—no, it makes no difference. We are done for."

"Pierre!"

"Don't you see, Mary, or are you still blind as I was ever since I saw you tonight? It's all in that name—Pierre."

"There nothing in it, Pierre, that I don't love."

He rose, and she with him. His head was bowed as if with the weight of the doom which he foresaw.

"You have heard of the wild men of the mountains, and the long-riders?"

He knew that she nodded, though she could not speak. "I am Red Pierre."

"You!"

"Yes."

Yet he had the courage to raise his head and watch her shrink with horror. It was only an