"Yes, sir; I heard her say she was 'spectin' you to-day."
He had an impulse to make inquiries of the girl regarding her mistress's disposition, but a certain evasive, almost satirical expression in her eyes prevented it. He was sure the maid was trying to avoid any sort of conference with him.
He sat down at one of the two windows of the room and looked at the cheap, gaudy furniture--the green-plush-covered chairs of imitation mahogany; the flaming rugs; the little upright piano; the square center-table, on which were scattered a deck of playing-cards; some thin whisky glasses; a brass tray of cigarettes. Four straight-backed chairs at the table told a story, as did the burnt matches and cigar- stubs on the hearth. Marie was not without associates, both male and female.
He heard voices in the rear of the cottage. He recognized Marie's raised angrily. Then it died away, to be succeeded by the low mumbling of the maid's. Suddenly Mostyn noticed a thing which fixed his gaze as perhaps no other inanimate object could have done. Partly hidden beneath the blue satin scarf on the piano was a good-sized revolver. Rising quickly, he took it up and examined it. It was completely loaded.
"She really is desperate!" He suddenly chilled through and through. "She got this for me."
He heard a step in the rear, and, quickly dropping the revolver into his coat pocket, he stood expectantly waiting. She was coming. Her tread alone betrayed excitement. The next instant she stood before him. She was a girl under twenty-two, a pretty brunette, with Italian cast of features, and a pair of bright, dark eyes, now ablaze with fury.
"So you are here at last?" she panted, pushing the door to and leaning against it.
"Yes, Saunders gave me your letter yesterday," he answered.
"I thought it would bring you." Her pretty lips were parted, the lower hung quivering. "If you hadn't come right away you would have regretted it to the last day of your life--huh! and that might not have been very far off, either."
"I did not like the--the tone of your letter, Marie." He was trying to be firm. "You see, you--"
"Didn't like it? Pooh!" she broke in. "Do you think I care a snap what you like or don't like? You've got to settle with me, and quick, too, for something you did--"
"I did?" he gasped, in slow surprise. "Why, what have I--"
"I'll tell you what you did," the woman blazed out, standing so close to him now that he felt her fierce breath on his face. "Shortly before you left you were taken sick at the bank, or fainted, or something like it, and didn't even tell me about it. I read it in the paper. I was beneath your high-and-mighty notice--dirt under your feet. But the next day you went driving with Irene Mitchell. You passed within ten feet of me at the crossing of Whitehall Street and Marietta. You saw me as plainly as you see me now, and yet you turned your head away. You thought"--here an actual oath escaped the girl's lips--"you were afraid of what that stuck-up fool of a woman would think. She knows about us--she's heard; she recognized me. I saw it in her eyes. She deliberately sneered at me, and you--you contemptible puppy!--you didn't even raise your hat to me after all your sickening, gushing protestations. I want to tell you right now, Dick Mostyn, that you can't walk over me. I'm ready for you, and I'm tired of this whole business."