ffect. As if
struck there suddenly by a painter's brush, two vivid spots appeared in
the girl's pale cheeks. She shrank back from him another step. Her eyes
blazed. Slowly, without turning their flame from his face, she pointed
to the edge of the shrubbery a few feet from where they were standing.
He looked. Twisted and partly coiled on the mold, where it had been
clubbed to death, was a little green grass snake.

"I hate him--like that!" she said.

His eyes came back to her. "Then for some reason known only to you and
Shan Tung you have sold or are intending to sell yourself to him!"

It was not a question. It was an accusation. He saw the flush of anger
fading out of her cheeks. Her body relaxed, her head dropped, and
slowly she nodded in confirmation.

"Yes, I am going to sell myself to him."

The astounding confession held him mute for a space. In the interval it
was the girl who became self-possessed. What she said next amazed him
still more.

"I have confessed so much because I am positive that you will not
betray me. And I went up to the Shack to find you, because I want you
to help me find a story to tell McDowell. You said you would help me.
Will you?"

He still did not speak, and she went on.

"I am accepting that promise as granted, too. McDowell mistrusts, but
he must not know. You must help me there. You must help me for two or
three weeks, At the end of that time something may happen. He must be
made to have faith in me again. Do you understand?"

"Partly," said Keith. "You ask me to do this blindly, without knowing
why I am doing it, without any explanation whatever on your part except
that for some unknown and mysterious price you are going to sell
yourself to Shan Tung. You want me to cover and abet this monstrous
deal by hoodwinking the man whose suspicions threaten its consummation.
If there was not in my own mind a suspicion that you are insane, I
should say your proposition is as ludicrous as it is impossible. Having
that suspicion, it is a bit tragic. Also it is impossible. It is
necessary for you first to tell me why you are going to sell yourself
to Shan Tung."

Her face was coldly white and calm again. But her hands trembled. He
saw her try to hide them, and pitied her.

"Then I won't trouble you any more, for that, too, is impossible," she
said. "May I trust you to keep in confidence what I have told you?
Perhaps I have had too much faith in you for a reason which has no
reason,