The spray, perhaps,
he would not understand; and yet he might. She pressed both hands to
her breast and drew a long breath, for her heart was breaking. Through
her misted eyes she could barely see the shimmer of the cross.
She dropped to her knees, and twisted her hands together in agony. It
was prayer. There were no words to it, but it was prayer, a wild
appeal for aid.
That aid came in the form of a calm that swept on her like the flood
of a clear moonlight over a storm-beaten landscape. The whisper which
had come to her before was now a solemn-speaking voice, and she knew
what she must do. She could not keep the two men apart, but she
might reach McGurk before and strike him down by stealth, by craft,
any way to kill that man as terrible as a devil, as invulnerable as
a ghost.
This she might do in the heart of the night, and afterward she might
have the courage left to tell the girl the truth and then creep off
somewhere and let this steady pain burn its way out of her heart.
Once she had reached a decision, it was characteristic that she moved
swiftly.
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