e was a crime unthinkable to her pious mind. Only God now could
save her in his infinite mercy.

She lay for a long time on the floor where she had fallen in utter
despair. The tears that brought relief at first had ceased to flow.
She had beaten her bleeding wings against every barrier, and they were
beyond her strength.

Out of the first stupor of complete surrender, her senses slowly
emerged. She felt the bare boards of the floor and wondered vaguely why
she was there.

The hum of voices again came to her ears. She lay still and listened.
A single terrible sentence she caught. He spoke it with such malignant
power she could see through the darkness the flames of hell leaping in
his eyes.

"Nobody's going to ask you HOW you got it--all they want to know is HAVE
you got it!"

She laughed hysterically at the idea of reformation that had stirred her
to such desperate appeal in the first shock of discovery. As well dream
of reforming the Devil as the man who expressed his philosophy of
life in that sentence! Blood dripped from every word, the blood of the
innocent and the helpless who might consciously or unconsciously stand
in his way. The man who had made up his mind to get rich quick, no
matter what the cost to others, would commit murder without the quiver
of an eyelid. If she had ever had a doubt of this fact, she could have
none after her experience of tonight.

She wondered vaguely of the effects he was producing on his ignorant
old mother. Her words were too low and indistinct to be heard. But she
feared the worst. The temptation of the gold he was showing her would be
more than she could resist.

She staggered to her feet and fell limp across the bed. The iron walls
of a life prison closed about her crushed soul. The one door that could
open was Death and only God's hand could lift its bars.

CHAPTER XXI. THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE

Hour after hour Nance stood beside the wall of the shed-room and with
the patience of a cat waited for the sobs to cease and the girl to be
quiet.

Mary had risen from the bed once and paced the floor in the dark for
more than an hour, like a frightened, wild animal, trapped and caged for
the first time in life. With growing wonder, Nance counted the beat
of her foot-fall, five steps one way and five back--round after round,
round after round, in ceaseless repetition.

"Goddlemighty, is she gone clean crazy!" she exclaimed.

The footsteps stopped at last and the low