a
married woman, and if you want to marry a rascal like that you're
welcome to do it!"

He stopped, and glared at her like a baffled animal.

She could not yet find her voice. In a vague way she knew that she had
been hurt, sorely wounded; that a profane foot had trodden in the holy
of holies in her breast, and that a profane hand had snatched at the
sacred fire which burned upon the altar there. She knew that never in
her life before had she felt as she did now. Her purity had been
affronted, and a friend's dear name had been attacked. She was crushed,
dumb, and realizing that she had failed miserably in her mission, she
dully turned The Prince's head towards the gate, and started to ride
away. But on the instant Marston's hand was on the bridle near the bit,
and Marston's figure loomed in her path.

"Not yet!" he gritted, venom flashing from his little eyes. "There is
more to tell, and I don't think I'll have a lovely opportunity like this
again soon! You refuse? You refuse my price?"

Still the girl did not answer. She could not answer, for her tongue
seemed paralyzed. A rabid sort of anger was mounting again in the fiend
before her. She saw its signals flare in a renewed gleam in his sodden
eyes, in the dull red, gorged muscles of his thick throat. His coarse
lips were twitching, as though forming words too awful for her to hear.
At this moment, too, a cloud passed before the sun, and a quick
lessening of light was perceptible. To Julia it almost amounted to
gloom, seated as she was in the dank shade of one of the funereal
cedars, and she could have cried out in pure physical terror had her
voice at that moment been subservient to her will. For there before her,
almost within arm's length, stood Devil Marston, like a huge spider in
his loathesomeness, compelling her to remain where she was, and listen
to whatever tale of malice, flavoured with a grain of truth, perhaps,
which he might care to relate.

"The terms! The terms!" he said, again, thrusting his face towards her
with all its projecting teeth visible. "You won't be hurt! What's a
glass of wine and a kiss? Tut! The first is nothing, and I'll bet that
jackanapes of a doctor gets plenty of the second! Isn't _one_ for _me_
worth two hundred and fifty dollars?"

This speech broke Julia's reserve, with its cruel, brutal accusation.

"Hush!" she exclaimed, all the dormant and deadened forces of her nature
awaking to full and vigorous protest. "Don't dare to