"Speak again!" he said, thickly. "Either I'm drunk or crazy!"
But Joan could not speak. She held out hands that shook--swept them
to her face--tore at the mask. Then with a gasp she stood revealed.
If she had stabbed him straight through the heart he could not have
been more ghastly. Joan saw him, in all the terrible transfiguration
that came over him, but she had no conceptions, no thought of what
constituted that change. After that check to her mind came a surge
of joy.
"Jim! ... Jim! It's Joan!" she breathed, with lips almost mute.
"JOAN!" he gasped, and the sound of his voice seemed to be the
passing from horrible doubt to certainty.
Like a panther he leaped at her, fastened a powerful hand at the
neck of her blouse, jerked her to her knees, and began to drag her.
Joan fought his iron grasp. The twisting and tightening of her
blouse choked her utterance. He did not look down upon her, but she
could see him, the rigidity of his body set in violence, the awful
shade upon his face, the upstanding hair on his head. He dragged her
as if she had been an empty sack. Like a beast he was seeking a dark
place--a hole to hide her. She was strangling; a distorted sight
made objects dim; and now she struggled instinctively. Suddenly the
clutch at her neck loosened; gaspingly came the intake of air to her
lungs; the dark-red veil left her eyes. She was still upon her
knees. Cleve stood before her, like a gray-faced demon, holding his
gun level, ready to fire.
"Pray for your soul--and mine!"
"Jim! Oh Jim! ... Will you kill yourself, too?"
"Yes! But pray, girl--quick!"
"Then I pray to God--not for my soul--but just for one more moment
of life... TO TELL YOU, JIM!"
Cleve's face worked and the gun began to waver. Her reply had been a
stroke of lightning into the dark abyss of his jealous agony.
Joan saw it, and she raised her quivering face, and she held up her
arms to him. "To tell--you--Jim!" she entreated.
"What?" he rasped out.
"That I'm innocent--that I'm as good--a girl--as ever.. ever. ...
Let me tell you. ... Oh, you're mistaken--terribly mistaken."
"Now, I know I'm drunk. ... You, Joan Randle! You in that rig! You
the companion of Jack Kells! Not even his wife! The jest of these
foul-mouthed bandits! And you say you're innocent--good? ... When you
refused to leave him!"
"I was afraid to go--afraid you'd be killed," she moaned, beating
her breast.