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176 The contact swept him with a bitter, distorted content. He had to force himself to grasp her shoulders, and to bend them back. Her hand rose. Scarcely understanding her intention, he saw her strike herself sharply across the face. An ugly, reddish mark survived. There was a suggestion of tears in her voice.

"You coward, Jim!"

The curtains were wider, but always, as he forced her back, he combatted the desire to draw her closer instead, to heal with his lips the scar with which his precipitancy had marked her.

She cried out again. He glanced at the curtains. He let her go, staring with a sense of loathing at a yellow, wrinkled face, which protruded from the purple, and permitted him to see, glistening above it, a braid of hair, serpent-like and perilous.

The leering face was withdrawn. Garth heard a low whistle modulated on an unfamiliar, minor interval.

"Don't resist them, Jim," Nora whispered. "I'll do what I can."

Then she turned and ran, screaming, through the curtains.

Garth dashed for the hidden door which led to the front of the house. If only he could break through there, reach a window, and signal the inspector, but when he tore the curtains back he faced panels of an exceptional stoutness, unquestionably built to deaden sound as well as to form a competent barricade. He surrendered to the realiza-