ccents of entreaty.
"I will have no more of it! Don't you mistrust me. I am sober in my
talk. Feel how quietly my heart beats. Ten times today when you, you,
you, swam in my eye, I thought it would burst one of my ribs or leap
out of my throat. It has knocked itself dead and tired, waiting for this
evening, for this very minute. And now it can do no more. Feel how quiet
it is!"

He made a step forward, but she raised her clear voice commandingly:

"No nearer!"

He stopped with a smile of imbecile worship on his lips, and with the
delighted obedience of a man who could at any moment seize her in his
hands and dash her to the ground.

"Ah! If I had taken you by the throat this morning and had my way with
you, I should never have known what you are. And now I do. You are a
wonder! And so am I, in my way. I have nerve, and I have brains, too.
We should have been lost many times but for me. I plan--I plot for my
gentleman. Gentleman--pah! I am sick of him. And you are sick of yours,
eh? You, you!"

He shook all over; he cooed at her a string of endearing names, obscene
and tender, and then asked abruptly:

"Why don't you speak to me?"

"It's my part to listen," she said, giving him an inscrutable smile,
with a flush on her cheek and her lips cold as ice.

"But you will answer me?"

"Yes," she said, her eyes dilated as if with sudden interest.

"Where's that plunder? Do you know?"

"No! Not yet."

"But there is plunder stowed somewhere that's worth having?"

"Yes, I think so. But who knows?" she added after a pause.

"And who cares?" he retorted recklessly. "I've had enough of this
crawling on my belly. It's you who are my treasure. It's I who found you
out where a gentleman had buried you to rot for his accursed pleasure!"

He looked behind him and all around for a seat, then turned to her his
troubled eyes and dim smile.

"I am dog-tired," he said, and sat down on the floor. "I went tired this
morning, since I came in here and started talking to you--as tired as if
I had been pouring my life-blood here on these planks for you to dabble
your white feet in."

Unmoved, she nodded at him thoughtfully. Woman-like, all her faculties
remained concentrated on her heart's desire--on the knife--while the man
went on babbling insanely at her feet, ingratiating and savage, almost
crazy with elation. But he, too, was holding on to his purpose.

"For you! For you I will throw away money, lives--all the lives but
m