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Rh "You must n't be afraid of me any more," she coaxed, still in a whisper. "Don't be so cold to me. I understand you now, don'tI? Don't I?" she repeated vehemently, shaking him. And she gave a little happy laugh that rang dreadful in Marden's ears. "Oh, you quiet men!"

Marden looked at her, silent. His eyes, accustomed to the starlight, saw with an unaccountable clearness. The woman's face—the odd, alluring face, triangular like a kitten's—was upturned to his once more, and once more was mysteriously pale. This time, at night, there was something magic and phantasmal in the yearning darkness of the great eyes. He knew her thoroughly vile, a byword of the countryside; yet for one moment she stood before him mystical, a sorceress, and he wondered if there were not help in her.

"Come on!" She tugged at him with triumphant energy. "It's all plain as day—an' easy. See. I 've got the money that we—I 've got money enough. We 'll go to the American side, an' then to the cities,