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T WAS as if the women had exchanged natures while they slept.

Rose threatened and Judith shrank!

The countenance that Rose showed her sister was a thunder-cloud rent by the lightning of her angry eyes. Her pose was like that of an animal set to spring. In her hand hung a revolver, and slowly the girl's grasp tightened upon the grip of the weapon and its muzzle lifted. Remarking this, a flash of her one-time temper quickened Judith.

"Well?" she taunted her sister. "Why don't you shoot?"

"What were you doing there?" Rose demanded.

"If you must know from me what you already know on the evidence of your eyes, I was bidding good-bye to the man I love, kissing him without his knowledge or consent before leaving him to you for good and all!"

"And so you leave him to me out of your charity! Is that it?"

"Any way you like. But if it's so intolerable to 267