Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/134

124 "It means," she answered in a tired voice, "that if you read what is on that paper you'll leave me no choice. I shall have to shoot."

Alden whimpered again. The paper fluttered to the floor and rested, white and uncommunicative, beneath the table. His face set. He pointed accusingly towards the rear window.

The gesture was clear to Garth. He knew what it meant before his eyes followed its direction. Before he had seen, he appreciated almost palpably the new presence in the room. At the moment it seemed inevitable to him that the tense group should be joined by a stronger force, the inspiration, probably, of the mysteries that had posed it, and that worked ahead, he could not doubt, to a graver issue for Alden and himself.

The newcomer glided from the shadows by the window and moved to Mrs. Alden's side—huge, powerful. The cap, drawn low over his eyes, and the thick growth about the mouth, robbed his face of expression and gave to his actions a mechanical precision not lightly to be disturbed. He took the revolver from the woman.

"I couldn't," she said. "He hasn't read. It won't be necessary?"

"Necessary," the man answered, "but you were right. Not in that way. It leaves too much evidence. As the others went."

"No more death," she cried. "There has been too much death."