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 ing out into the world in her fearless, defiant fashion.

He drew closer and closer to it, as though by very force of will he would wrest from her the secret of her strength. But the closer he looked the more scornfully mocking grew the lips, the more contemptuous her glance.

“You devil!” he muttered. “I hate you!”

He shook his first at that mocking mouth, but the eyes seemed to smile insolently at his impotence. The word “Roma” was printed under the photograph; his eyes caught it, and memory rushed back to the days of their first meeting. Slowly he had wandered into the hall; without interest he had followed the per- formance until she had appeared. To him now the rest seemed like a blur, a mist of memory. But he remembered that she had not proved tedious hunting, and he smiled. She was clev- erer than the others—oh, so mightily clever. And the trapper was trapped!

“She had a lovely throat,” he murmured; “such a lovely throat.”

She was showing it there in the photograph, slim yet full; moulded exquisitely. The pose

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