Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/43

Rh Thrusting the Indian aside, the woman knelt by Alan's head.

"So!" she said sweetly. "So, Mr. Alan Law!"

He made no effort to reply; the thought in his mind was that in those eyes was less of madness than of inhumanity; that this was less a creature bereft of reason than one brought into the world without a soul.

"No," she said, smiling cruelly, "I am not your Rose. But I am her sister Judith, born in the same hour, daughter of Can you guess whose daughter?"

He shook his head.

"You thought it a girl’s romantic nonsense that made Rose refuse you because of a secret barrier between you! But see this!” She held a card before his eyes. "You know it? The Trey of Hearts—the symbol of Trine—Trine, your father's enemy, and yours, and—Rose's father and mine!"

A gust of wind like a furnace blast swept the glade. The woman sprang up, glanced over-shoulder into the forest, and signed to the Indian.

"In ten minutes," she said, "these woods will be your funeral pyre."

Jacob picked Alan up and strode into the forest. Ten feet from the clearing he dropped the helpless man upon a bed of dry logs and branches.

Then, with a single movement, he disappeared. 25