Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/246



HE following morning when Stella, sitting up in bed, opened her mail and read Acker man's report, the last doubt of John Graham's guilt was shattered.

Stella sprang from her bed and began hurriedly to dress.

"Now God give me strength for the work I'm going to do!" she cried, with strangling rage. "To think that such a man should dare to speak to me of love—should dare to clasp my hand with the stain of my father's blood yet fresh on his! I could kill him with my own hand—coward, dastard, sneak, assassin! I hate him—I hate him!"

She threw herself on her bed again in a paroxysm of uncontrollable fury. She arose at length, calm, alert, her cheeks flushed with brilliant colour,