The Bronze Bell by Louis Joseph Vance
page 61 of 360 (16%)
page 61 of 360 (16%)
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Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window, there to stand, his back to Amber, staring fixedly out into the storm-racked night. "I knew her father," he said at length, his tone constrained and odd, "long ago, in India." "He's out there now--a Political, I believe they call him, or something of the sort." "Yes." "She's going out to rejoin him." "What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his voice shaking. "What did you say?" "Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western route to join Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's stationed just now. Shortly after I came down she left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago, saying she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.... Good Lord, Rutton! are you ill?" Something in the man's face had brought Amber to his feet, a prey to inexpressible concern; it was as if a mask had dropped and he were looking upon the soul of a man in mortal torture. |
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