inking of something else,
usually, throughout all the fiery Jakiads. While he indicted whole
nations and denounced all success as a crime against unsuccess she was
hunting through her work-basket for a good thread to patch Sam's pants
with.

Abbie was unmoved, but Mamise was appalled. It was her first encounter
with the abysmal hatred of which some of these loud lovers of mankind
are capable. Jake's theories had been merely absurd or annoying
before, but now they grew monstrous, for they seemed to be confirmed
by an actual crime.

Mamise felt that she must escape from the presence of Jake or attack
him. She despised him too well to argue with him, and she rose to go.

Abbie pleaded with her in vain to stay to supper. She would not be
persuaded. She walked to her own bungalow and cooked herself a little
meal of her own. She felt stained once more with vicarious guilt, and
wondered what she had done so to be pursued and lassoed by the crimes
of others.

She remembered that she had lost her chance to clear herself of Sir
Joseph Webling's guilt by keeping his secret. If she had gone to the
British authorities with her first suspicion of Sir Joseph and Nicky
Easton she would have escaped from sharing their guilt. She would
have been branded as an informer, but only by the conspirators; and
Sir Joseph himself and Lady Webling might have been saved from
self-destruction.

Now she was in the same situation almost exactly. Again she had only
suspicion for her guide. But in England she had been a foreigner and
Sir Joseph was her benefactor. Here she was in her own country, and
she owed nothing to Jake Nuddle, who was a low brute, as ruthless to
his wife as to his flag.

It came to Mamise with a sharp suddenness that her one clear duty was
to tell Davidge what she knew about Jake. It was not a pretty duty,
but it was a definite. She resolved that the first thing she did in
the morning would be to go to Davidge with what facts she had. The
resolution brought her peace, and she sat down to her meager supper
with a sense of pleasant righteousness.

Mamise felt so redeemed that she took up a novel, lighted a cigarette,
and sat down by her lamp to pass a well-earned evening of spinsterial
respectability. Then the door opened and Abbie walked in. Abbie did
not think it sisterly to knock. She paused to register her formal
protest against Mamise's wicked addiction to tobacco.

"I must say, Mamise, I do wisht you'd break yoursel