He dropped the paper as if it had been a thing
unclean, and his hands clenched until his knuckles snapped in the
stillness of the room, as he slowly faced the window through which a few
moments ago he had looked in the direction of Mary Standish's cabin.
So John Graham was keeping his promise, the deadly promise he had made
in the one hour of his father's triumph--that hour in which the elder
Holt might have rid the earth of a serpent if his hands had not revolted
in the last of those terrific minutes which he as a youth had witnessed.
And Mary Standish was the instrument he had chosen to work his ends!
In these first minutes Alan could not find a doubt with which to fend
the absoluteness of the convictions which were raging in his head, or
still the tumult that was in his heart and blood. He made no pretense to
deny the fact that John Graham must have written this letter to Mary
Standish; inadvertently she had kept it, had finally attempted to
destroy it, and Stampede, by chance, had discovered a small but
convincing remnant of it. In a whirlwind of thought he pieced together
things that had happened: her efforts to interest him from the
beginning, the determination with which she had held to her purpose, her
boldness in following him to the Range, and her apparent endeavor to
work herself into his confidence--and with John Graham's signature
staring at him from the table these things seemed conclusive and
irrefutable evidence.
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