Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/299

Rh not any steady current, but fitful rushes of air, and on one of these brief blasts it seemed to Mary that she caught the sound of a voice blown to whistling murmur. It was a vague thing of which she could not be sure, as faint as a thought. Yet the head of the white horse disappeared, and the glimmer of the man's face went out.

She called: "Whatever you are, wait! Let me speak!"

But no answer came, and she knew that the form was gone forever.

She cried again: "Who's there?"

"It is I," said a voice at her elbow, and she turned to look into the dark eyes of Jacqueline.

"So he's gone?" asked Jack bitterly.

She fingered the butt of her gun.

"I thought—well, my chance at him is gone."

"But what—"

"Bah, if you knew you'd die of fear. Listen to what I have to say. All the things I told you in the cabin were lies."

"Lies?" said Mary evenly. "No, they proved themselves."

"Be still till I've finished, because if you talk you may make me forget—"

The gesture which finished the sentence was so eloquent of hate that Mary shrank away and put the embers of the fire between them.

"I tell you, it was all a lie, and Pierre le Rouge has never loved anything but you, you milk-faced, yellow-livered—"

She stopped again, fighting against her passion.