Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/293



PENDING his first night in a cell, "She'll come," Harrington whispered, turning restlessly on his narrow-mattressed shelf, the creaking springs of which protested with each shifting of his weight. "She'll come!" Actually the man lulled himself to sleep, murmuring, with a smile upon his lips: "She'll come . . . she'll come."

But when he came back to consciousness with daylight peering through that barred north window, ugly realities were all about him. He cowered before them for a few seconds, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, staring at the unfamiliar network of bars, listening to the unfamiliar sounds, olfactories quivering to the unfamiliar smells; then thinking beyond all these sensations to what they meant.

"She'll come," he tried to assure himself stoutly; but instead of Billie it was Lahleet again who came, gazing at him hungrily, penetratingly, as if she would see in the very soul of him, how he did. Truth to tell, he did very badly at the moment and peered out at her hollow-eyed, forgetting to smile as she also forgot.

"The papers! Have you seen the morning papers?" he asked hoarsely, his anxiety admitting now what effect of good or ill to him could proceed from what these dastard little blanket sheets said and how.

"Lies—nothing but lies!" The black eyes snapped and, as though she did it to discharge a painful duty,