Page:Restless Earth.djvu/218
pattern of her kimono! Beautiful, yes. But deadly. Deadly!
He lifted his head and sniffed like an animal as he entered the breakfast-room. Even the fragrance of her was alluring, poisonously alluring!
He closed the door and approached her where she stood beneath the light.
“Well?” he asked softly. “You know why I am here?”
Patricia nodded. She looked at him fearlessly, and with a great pity. The alteration in him was tragic. His eyes, though they glittered with a mad light, seemed strangely vacant. His unshaven cheeks, lined and sunken, quivered as though his nervous system were utterly smashed.
“I know,” she answered softly.
“And you are not afraid?”
“No.”
He shook his head in a puzzled manner. He had not expected this attitude in her.
“Why? Why are you not afraid?”
“Because you will not kill me, Jimmy.”
He laughed silently, a horrible laugh which shook him to his heels.
“No? I will not kill you?” he mocked.
She looked at him calmly. He became savage.
“You think I will hesitate to kill you? Hesitate to kill the thing which has smashed my life?”
She did not flinch. Instead, she smiled at him pityingly.
“You will not kill me, for your own sake, Jimmy.”
“For my own sake?” snarled Harley, advancing a step uatil the muzzle of the pistol was thrust against the girl’s heart. “Do you think I care what becomes of me when you are dead? You, who have robbed me of my reason, poisoned my brain, so that even now I want to take you in my arms! In my arms and crush you—like the deadly thing you are! The Devil gave you beauty and took away your heart! You laugh at the men who grovel before you!” he con-