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 when we get off, we can walk on the streets as freely as anybody. We'll be a genuine man and wife.”

His recital somehow stirred him. He took her in his arms, pressed her cheek to his, and after a moment kissed her lips with the trembling ardor of a bridegroom.

Cissie remained passive a moment, then put up he hands, turned his face away, and slowly released herself.

Peter was taken aback.

“What is the matter, Cissie?”

“I can't go, Peter.”

Peter looked at her with a feeling of strangeness.

“Can't go?”

The girl shook her head.

“You mean—you want us to live here?”

Cissie sat exceedingly still and barely shook her head.

The mulatto had a sensation as if the portals which disclosed a new and delicious life were slowly closing against him. He stared into her oval face.

“You don't mean, Cissie—you don't mean you don't want to marry me?”

The fagots on the hearth burned now with a cheerful flame. Cissie stared at it, breathing rapidly from the top of her lungs. She seemed about to faint. As Peter watched her the jealousy of the male crept over him.

“Look here, Cissie,” he said in a queer voice, “you—you don't mean, after all, that Tump Pack is—”