Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/205

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THE LULL IN THE STORM
189

die. He was sentenced and sent to the Island of Malpanto, on the Pacific coast. The Locombian penal colony is there. He was sent there, for life. He was dead, to all the world—he was dead to me."

"Then he is dead, to all——"

"Wait. I wanted to make sure of my freedom, to be foolishly sure of it. So I went North. Then I went to New Orleans, to my old home."

"But why?" he asked, as he noticed her hesitation.

"A felony, in Louisiana, is a cause for absolute divorce."

"You mean you were set free in your own country!"

"Yes, that is why I went to the United States. That is why I was there when the news of this revolution first reached me."

"And Ganley knows this?" McKinnon demanded.

"Ganley knows everything," she answered.

"And this is why you are so against him?"

She had to school herself into self-control before she could go on.

"I have a better reason for being against him. If he and his Liberal Party once acquire power, Ganley will bring Perralta back to Guariqui; he will commute his sentence. He will do this to strike at my brother Arturo."