care. All he wanted was to get you for his picture. That
was all he made love to you for. He'd have sacrificed you to the devil
for that. You don't believe me, maybe, but I know--I know!"

There was savage certainty in the reiterated words, and the girl
recoiled from them, her face like death. But he held her still,
implacably, relentlessly.

"That's all he wants of you," he said. "To use you for his purpose, and
then--to throw you aside. Why"--and he suddenly showed his clenched
teeth--"he dared--damn him!--he dared to tell me so!"

"He--told you!" Her lips spoke the words at last, but they seemed to
come from a long way off.

"Yes." With suppressed violence he answered her. "He didn't put it that
way--being a gentleman! But he took care to make me understand that he
only wanted you for the sake of his accursed picture. That's the only
thing that counts with him, and he's the sort not to care what he does
to get it. He wouldn't have got you--like this--if he hadn't made you
love him first. I know that too--as well as if you'd told me."

The passion in his voice was rising, and it was as if the heat of it
rekindled her animation. With a jerky movement she flung up both her
hands, grasping tensely the arms that held her so rigidly.

"Yes, I love him!" she said, and her voice rang wildly. "I love him! I
don't care what he is! Rufus--Rufus--oh, for the love of Heaven, don't
let him drown!" The words rushed out desperately; it was as if her whole
nature, all her pride, all her courage, were flung into that frantic
appeal. She clung to the man with straining entreaty. "Oh, go down and
save him!" she begged. "I'll do anything for you in return--anything you
like to ask! Only do this one thing for me! He may have escaped the
tide. If so, he'll try the quicksand, and he don't know the lie of it!
Rufus, you wouldn't want--your worst enemy--to die like that!"

She broke off, wildly sobbing, yet still clinging to him in agonised
entreaty. The man's face, with its crude ferocity, the untamed glitter
of its fiery eyes, was still bent to hers, but she no longer shrank from
it. The power that moved her was too immense to be swayed by lesser
things. His attitude no longer affected her, one way or another. It had
ceased to count, so that she only wrenched from him this one great boon.

And Rufus must have realised the fact, for he stood up sharply and
backed against the door, releasing her.

"You don't know what you're saying,