"What are you doing here?" They were the first words spoken by
the man on the lounge and they rang with a curt challenge.
"Come to inquire after the health of my dear cousin," came the
prompt silken answer.
"You villain!"
"My dear cousin, y'u speak with such conviction that y'u almost
persuade me. But of course if I'm a villain I've got to live up
to my reputation. Haven't I, Miss Messiter?"
"Wouldn't it be better to live it down?" she asked with a
quietness that belied her terror. For there had been in his
manner a threat, not against her but against the man whom her
heart acknowledged as her lover.
He laughed. "Y'u're still hoping to make a Sunday school
superintendent out of me, I see. Y'u haven't forgot all your
schoolmarm ways yet, but I'll teach y'u to forget them."
The other cousin watched him with a cool, quiet glance that never
wavered. The outlaw was heavily armed, but his weapons were
sheathed, and, though there was a wary glitter behind the
vindictive exultation in his eyes, his capable hands betrayed no
knowledge of the existence of his revolvers. It was, he knew, to
be a moral victory, if one at all.
"Hope I'm not disturbing any happy family circle," he remarked,
and, taking two limping steps forward, he lifted the book from
the girl's unresisting hands.
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