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Rh like, and welcome! Now, then; what do you think of me now?”

And Claire, looking up through her tears, saw the woman decked out already, rings in her ears and on her finger, the brooch and pendant gleaming and glittering on her black stuff dress, and a quiet smile upon her wicked face. Claire could almost have smiled herself.

“And for these you’ll hold your tongue until after the trial?”

“Till all’s blue, you mean! I should think I would—and do anything you like, miss, to lend a hand.”

Her mistress leapt to her feet, a living flame.

“Then put those things in your pocket and be out of my sight! Now—now—before I sacrifice him for a fiend like you!”

And this was how Claire was followed along her narrow ledge, by one who might push her from it at any moment: so that she had now not only her own feet to watch, but the treacherous hand behind her back as well.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRIAL OPENS

or two before the trial, when Bassett called at the prison, Tom handed him a little, broken-backed card; and the speaking eye, that had been dull and dumb for six long days, was once more eloquent with light and life. Bassett took the card gingerly between an effeminate finger and thumb, and examined it with a critical brow. It was a pawn-ticket for a suit of clothes.