Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/34

22 a woman, and for the sake of Léontine I might have dropped him. But as I glanced at his face my heart seemed to stop beating. For there in front of me was my own living, breathing image! There were the same clean-cut features inherited from generations of aristocrats; the same flat cheeks and straight brows, with the same blue eyes shining out beneath; the same light, close-cropped moustache and short crisp hair and the ears set trim and close, high on the side of the narrow head. By George, if I'd stepped in front of a mirror the likeness couldn't have been cleaner! And I knew in that moment that the man was my closest blood kinsman, my half-brother. I knew that he had married a rich woman and lived in Paris, but I had never known where.

"Shoot! Shoot!" Léontine was hissing in my ear.

But the man had got himself together. I saw his face set and stiffen and knew that something was going to happen quick, so I shoved Léontine behind me and faced him, the gun in my hand. His keen eye caught the flash of it, then bang! and I felt a bullet tearing through my upper arm. Bang! and he fired again. But at the same moment I leaped forward, and though the powder scorched my face the bullet only creased the scalp. The next second I had both arms around him, and down the stairs we fell, over and over, to the landing. His head struck something, and he went limp in my grip.

"Run!" I yelled at Léontine. "Now's your chance! Run!"

She swept down and past me like a black leopard-