e to upbraid her with losing the
treasure she had entrusted to her.

"Nur-el-Din," the girl faltered in a voice broken with tears.

"Where is it I Where is the silver box I gave into your charge?
Answer me. Mais reponds, donc, canaille!"

The dancer stamped furiously with her foot and advanced
menacingly on Barbara.

An undersized; yellow-faced man came quickly out of the small
door leading from the bar and stood an instant, a helpless
witness of the scene, as men are when women quarrel.

Nur-el-Din rapped out an order to him in a tongue which was
unknown to Barbara. It sounded something like Russian. The man
turned and locked the door of the bar, then stepped swiftly
across the room and bolted the outer door.

Barbara recognized the threat that the action implied and it
served to steady her nerves. She shrank back no longer but drew
herself up and waited calmly for the dancer to reach her.

"The box you gave me," said Barbara very quietly, "was stolen
from me by the person who... who murdered my father!"

Nur-el-Din burst into a peal of malicious laughter.

"And you?" she cried, "you are 'ere to sell it back to me, hein,
or to get your blood money from your accomplice? Which is it?"

On this Barbara's self-control abandoned her.

"Oh, how dare you! How dare you!" she exclaimed, bursting into
tears, "when that wretched box you made me take was the means of
my losing the dearest friend I ever had!"

Nur-el-Din thrust her face, distorted with passion, into
Barbara's. She spoke in rapid French, in a low, menacing voice.

"Do you think this play-acting will deceive me? Do you think I
don't know the value of the treasure I was fool enough to entrust
to your safe keeping? Grand Dieu! I must have been mad not to
have remembered that no woman could resist the price that they
were willing to pay for it! And to think what I have risked for
it! Is all my sacrifice to have been in vain?"

Her voice rose to a note of pleading and the tears started from
her eyes. Her mood changed. She began to wheedle.

"Come, ma petite, you will help me recover my little box,
n'est-ce pas? You will find me generous. And I am rich, I have
great savings. I can..."

Barbara put up her hands and pushed the dancer away from her.

"After what you have said to me to-night," she said, "I wouldn't
give you back your box even if I had it."

She turned to the man.

"Will you tell me the way to the nearest station" she went on,
"and ki