those eyes, as for
a space Betty's heart fluttered against Jim Kendric's breast, came for
the first time since the knife had been withdrawn from her throat, a
quickening of purpose, a glint as of a covered fire breaking through.

"Come, Betty," said Jim quickly. "We are going to clear out of this,
you and I. Right now!"

He noted a slight restless stirring of Zoraida's foot and stepped to
her side, his hand again on her arm.

"We are not through with you yet," he told her. "Miss Gordon will want
some clothes."

"In her room," agreed Zoraida. "Come."

Had she delayed her answer the fraction of a second he might have
followed her, suspecting nothing. But as it was he remarked on her
eagerness; Zoraida was passionately set on treachery and he sensed it.

"No," he answered. "From here we go straight out into the open."
Zoraida had yielded to the pressure on her arm as though to continue in
her new role of implicit obedience. But now his distrust was wide
awake. There may have been a slight involuntary stiffening of her
muscles, hinting at rebellion; there was something which warned him in
the look she sought to veil. "What clothes Betty needs you can give
her. Here and now."

"Oh!" cried Betty, with a look of abhorrence and a shudder. "I
couldn't----"

"It can't be helped," he retorted. And to Zoraida: "She'll want shoes
and stockings."

The look he had then from Zoraida was one of utter loathing and at last
of unhidden lust for his undoing. But after it she bestowed on him a
slow contemptuous smile and again she obeyed. Her little shoes she
kicked off; she drew off her stockings and he handed them to Betty.

"Zoraida goes barefooted at a man's command!" A first note of laughter
was in Zoraida's voice. "What more? Am I to disrobe in a man's
presence?"

"Your cloak," he muttered. "We'll make that do."

The cloak Betty accepted and threw about her shoulders. The shoes and
stockings she held a moment, looking at them with repulsion in her
eyes; they were too intimate, they had come too lately from Zoraida and
in the end she threw them down.

"My sandals will do," she said. "I can't wear her things."

Kendric picked them up and thrust them into his pocket.

"Later, then," he said. "God knows we can't be choosers. Now," and
again he confronted Zoraida, "you will show us the way. Clear of the
house. And we'll want horses. One thing, mind you: It is in my
thought that if we allow you t