quare with each one. The
wounds of Black Gandil were all in front, and when McGurk and I meet
it's going to be face to face."

Her tone changed, softened: "But what of me, Pierre?"

"You have to leave this life. Go down to the city, Jack. Live like a
woman; marry some lucky fellow; be happy."

"Can you leave me so easily?"

"No, it's hard, devilish hard to part with a pal like you, Jack; but
all the rest of my life I've got hard things to face, partner."

"Partner!" she repeated with an indescribable emphasis. "Pierre, I
can't leave you."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid to go. Let me stay!"

He said gloomily: "No good will come of it."

"I'll never trouble you--never!"

"No, the bad luck comes on the people who are with me, but never on me.
It's struck them all down, one by one; your turn is next, Jack. If I
could leave the cross behind--"

He covered his face, and groaned: "But I don't dare; I don't dare! I
have to face McGurk. Jack, I hate myself for it, but I can't help it.
I'm afraid of McGurk, afraid of that damned white face, that lowered,
fluttering eyelid, that sneering mouth. Without the cross to bring me
luck, how could I meet him? But while I keep the cross there's ruin
and hell without end for every one with me."

She was white and shaking. She said: "I'm not afraid. I've one friend
left; there's nothing else to care for."

"So it's to be this way, Jack?"

"This way, and no other."

"Partner, I'm glad. My God, Jack, what a man you would have made!"

Their hands met and clung together, and her head had drooped, perhaps
in acquiescence.

CHAPTER XXVI

A GAME OF SUPPOSE

Dick Wilbur, telling Mary how Pierre had cut himself adrift, did not
even pretend to sorrow, and she listened to him with her eyes fixed
steadily on his own. As a matter of fact, she had shown neither hope
nor excitement from the moment he came back to her and started to tell
his message. But if she showed neither hope nor excitement for
herself, surely she gave Dick still fewer grounds for any optimistic
foresights.

So he finished gloomily: "And as far as I can make out, Pierre is
right. There's some rotten bad luck that follows him. It may not be
the cross--I don't suppose you believe in superstition like that, Miss
Brown?"

She said: "It saved my life."

"The cross?"

"Yes."

"Then Pierre--you mean--you met before the dance--you mean--"

He was stammering so that he couldn't finish his thought