Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/108



a space Val sat in the onyx and gold lobby of the Giltmore and consumed numerous cigarettes, the while he decided on his course of action. For action it had to be; he was not the man to take a passive part in the melodrama that was wrapping itself around the woman he loved. Here was love and adventure.

He knew that Jessica Pomeroy was determined on her course; he could see that she had a high sense of duty and obligation—and if her duty and her sense of obligation led her even to the point of marrying the loathsome object that had no hands, why, she would do it. He knew that. It was not a question of whether she cared for him, Valentine Morley. How could a perfect creature like Jessica Pomeroy care for an ordinary man like him?

But he would make her care! And the first way to do that was to release her from her assumed obligation to marry this Ignace Teck. She had intimated that if it was proved to her that he had murdered Mat Masterson she would reconsider her determination—she would not be bound to marry a murderer. But how to prove that?

He considered this for a short time and it came to him suddenly. Why, what a fool he had been! By the books, of course. Rh