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 tionally while he was able presently to say reverently and with unction:

"God has preserved you, Marien. You owe Him everything."

"It was you who preserved me," she amended, with jealous emphasis and that look again of hungry devotion which he had seen first in the church. "It is you to whom I owe everything."

"I preserved you?" Hampstead asked, now completely mystified, as he remembered with what scornful words and looks she had whipped him from her presence. "I do not understand. We pass from mystery to mystery. Is it that which you said you must tell me?"

"No. I have told you what I wanted to tell you."

The woman was again entirely at her ease, shrugging her beautiful shoulders and yawning lazily,—a carefully-staged and cat-like yawn, in which she appeared for an instant to show sharp teeth and claws, and then as suddenly to bury them in velvet.

The minister stood gazing at her doubtfully.