flushed by turns. "You may learn to be
kind to me, Betty," he said. "You may find it will be worth your while."
Betty made no answer, she only gathered Hannibal closer to her side. "Why
not accept what I have to offer, Betty?" again he went nearer her,
and again she shrank from him, but the madness of his mood was in the
ascendant. He seized her and drew her to him. She struggled to free
herself, but his fingers tightened about hers.

"Let me go!" she panted. He laughed his cool laugh of triumph.

"Let you go--ask me anything but that, Betty! Have you no reward
for patience such as mine? A whole summer has passed since I saw you
first--"

There was the noisy shuffling of feet on the stairs, and releasing
Betty, Murrell swung about on his heel and faced the door. It was pushed
open an inch at a time by a not too confident hand and Mr. Slosson thus
guardedly presented himself to the eye of his chief, whom he beckoned
from the room.

"Well?" said Murrell, when they stood together on the landing.

"Just come across to the keel boat!" and Slosson led the way down the
stairs and from the house.

"Damn you, Joe; you might have waited!" observed the outlaw. Slosson
gave him a hardened grin. They crossed the clearing and boarded the keel
boat which rested against the bank. As they did so, the cabin in the
stern gave up a shattered presence in the shape of Tom Ware. Murrell
started violently. "I thought you were hanging out in Memphis, Tom?"
he said, and his brow darkened as, sinister and forbidding, he stepped
closer to the planter. Ware did not answer at once, but looked at
Murrell out of heavy bloodshot eyes, his face pinched and ghastly. At
last he said, speaking with visible effort,

"I stayed in Memphis until five o'clock this morning."

"Damn your early hours!" roared Murrell. "What are you doing here?
I suppose you've been showing that dead face of yours about the
neighborhood--why didn't you stay at Belle Plain since you couldn't keep
away?"

"I haven't been near Belle Plain, I came here instead. How am I going
to meet people and answer questions?" His teeth were chattering. "Is it
known she's missing?" he added.

"Hicks raised the alarm the first thing this morning, according to the
instructions I'd given him."

"Yes?" gasped Ware. He was dripping from every pore and the sickly color
came and went on his unshaven cheeks. Murrell dropped a heavy hand on
his shoulder.

"You haven't been at Belle Plain, you