Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/87

 George, this was the day when Scanlon was coming to his office to—Scanlon! Scanlon! The thought of Scanlon was wildly inflaming. Scanlon, he had discovered, was a traitor—and a particularly base kind of traitor—planning a betrayal so gross and vile as to be almost unbelievable.

"I've got to get ashore, Miss Marceau," he announced desperately; "and as quickly as possible. Just who is this girl, Miss Marceau? One of your Shell Pointers, I take it? One of your pupils, perhaps? But—is she some relation to Adam John?"

"You have guessed it," smiled Miss Marceau; although in that shadow in which she kept her face a smile was but faintly distinguishable. "Adam John is Lahleet's foster-brother."

"Which reminds me, Miss Marceau!" exclaimed Henry with the challenging emphasis of a new thought. "Mr. Boland took up with me last night that matter of the Shell Point land. He wants to buy it."

"Boland? What!" cried the school-teacher in a startled voice. "I told you so!" she blazed, and came darting forward, then halted suddenly, as somehow dismayed with herself. But she had halted this time in the spotlight of that filtering glory from the parted cretonne curtain.

Harrington gaped with sudden wonder and rose slowly, staring. "You!" he exclaimed in amazement. "You are Lahleet?" he breathed incredulously, peering closer into the face now framed so differently from the one he had been looking at before he slept. The beads were gone; the strings of shells and the braids were gone; the whole environment of feature was changed.

"Lahleet Marceau," the little school-teacher mur-