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 your hurry, my dear girl?" Soft, as were the words, they yet caused the design to fail.

Their non-effect was clearly visible in the girl's tragic eyes. She was caught in a trap; all his trimmings and posturings seemed only to emphasize the fact that she had no means of getting out.

Like a powerful drug the brutal truth attacked her brain. It was as if its higher nerve centres could no longer act. She was completely in the power of this man. And only too well did she know that he knew it.

Inevitably as fate, those slim fingers dipped towards the side of her chair. "What have we here?" The inflexion was lightly playful, yet it drove all the blood from her heart. "May I look?" His hand closed on the parcel before she could muster one futile finger to stay it.

Galvanized, as if by electricity, she sprang up from her chair without knowing what she did. "Please—it's mine!" Without conscious volition she tried weakly to defend her property.

He put her off with the cheery playfulness of a teasing brother. "Just one little peep," he said. The treasure was yielding its wrappings already to those deft fingers. Smiling all the time, he treated the thing as a mere joke. And he was able to give the joke full effect, because, not for an instant did he expect it to turn out anything else.