Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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cried, in a repressed voice. son do you propose such a visit? I shall vini> OF HATE. The look she gave him was all at once full, searching. « Why do you imagine all this?” she “ For what rea- not meet you—lI shall not! You think to amuse yourself by hoodwinking me, that you may. afterward laugh and boast of it. I’ve told you I hate you, and your family, and your name.” “There you’re wrong in your thought of me,” he answered, with a peculiar, winning gentleness. “I’m honest—and of that I boast, but I boast of nothing else. When was a Gaillard ever disrespectful to wo- men? And that includes those pasting your _name.” “Then why should you wish to meet me thus?” ~ “It’s the only way I can meet you at «“ And why, under any circumstances, should you and I meet?” “ Nay, let us first meet, and if there be no reason we'll speedily learn it,” said he, spreading his hands, “ and if there be one it will make itself known without explana- tion. In silence she considered his great, dark eyes, glowing now. with a fervor that be- spoke his admiration; and his face, exercis- ing a magnetism she found it difficult to resist. An unaccountable agitation took posses- sion of her. She felt she must draw back, refuse to look at him, spurn his words. “Give me my bird, please,” said she, indistinctly. Where was her erie? she asked herself. Where the haughtiness with which she al- ways pictured herself in the past if circum- stances cast them together? Gaillard lifted and placed the toucan in her hands. Then one of her hands he drew free; he quickly bent, touched it Hentys with his lips. | ‘To-morrow night,” he whispered. “ T will not—I will not!” : “ At nightfall.” | “Tl have the Barbaneras meet and kill you if you dare!” she said between her teeth. He still retained the fingers and felt them 7 ARGOSY 97 tremble in his clasp. Her lips, too, were quivering. “By the live-oak, remember,” ? he said, smiling. “You come at your own peril, Louis Gaillard.” “Peril to my heart alone, ” said he. “And so I come.” “Oh, will nothing step you?” - And will await you,” said he. “Tl not meet a Gaillard—never, never!” And she turned with flaming face to go. ‘“ Never, never, never!’ she repeated, turn- ing for a flashing look. ‘Then she rushed out, CHAPTER XII. THE BROTHERS BARBANERA, AS Jerry Moffat groped his way once more through the trees, he expected a wetting and nothing more. He judged the approaching clouds to be a thunder-storm, which would be of brief duration, for his knowledge of hurricanes was of the haziest, a notion they were tempests in remote seas and associated with shipwrecks, a belief fos- tered by pictures in beoks. So he calmly and confidently proceeded on his own pri- vate adventure with a sublime ignorance of what was impending. — For the time being he dismissed Gaillard and the two girls in the sailboat from his mind. Gaillard had started off in the motor- boat; undoubtedly he had gone te get them, and certainly he would bring them home; and that was all there was to the matter. If the shower overtook the craft on its re- turn, why, Gaillard and Zorillas, sworn ene- mies, would be drenched together just as if they were sworn friends. - He came out from the gloom of the trees upon the edge of the grounds, but this time nearer the house than when he had led Anita Carley back from their brief parley. He halted for a moment, in some wonderment at the agitated cries of the members of the household before the door, and guessed that the alarm shown was for Isabel and Felipa. Then he glanced at the sky. The darkness was clapping down thickly, except when illuminated by lightning cComiclbooks.com