ll you."

"Going?" Gaston asked, for Jude had risen and was awkwardly shifting
from foot to foot. "Well, so long! Good luck--and a speedy marriage."

Then the door closed upon the transformed Jude.

"Now, what in thunder," mused Gaston in the hot, smoky room, "has got
into that fellow, I wonder!" Could they know of his money? The amount,
and manner of getting it? Was he, in offering Jude this assistance,
letting the leak in upon his own safety?

A cloud gathered on Gaston's face. A sensation of coming evil possessed
him. He felt as if, in an unguarded moment, he had given an enemy a
power over him.

The memory of the look in Jude's face when the money cast a gleam over
his hate, repelled him. Gaston was as fully alive to the possibilities
now as Jude was--perhaps more so; but there stood the pale, innocent
girl between them. He recalled her hurt, quivering face when he had
urged her into Jude's keeping. It had seemed her only salvation--hers
and his! But it began to look now like a hideous damnation.

"Poor little devil," he murmured taking the lamp and going back into his
bedroom.

The window of this room he closed carefully, and set the lamp upon the
rude desk. He drew the pistol from the drawer, and laid it conveniently
at hand, then he turned to the chest with the mighty lock and, having
unfastened it, drew forth a small package and went back to the chair
before the desk.

The package contained a photograph and some letters. The letters were
tied together, and these the man placed beside the pistol. The
photograph he took from its various wrappings of tissue paper and braced
it against the lamp.

The big clock hanging over the window frame struck one. The heat in the
little room became stifling, and the lamp flickered in its duty--for the
oil was running low.

With arms folded before him Gaston gazed upon the pictured face. It
broke upon the senses like a revelation of womanhood. At the first
glance it seemed as if just that type had never been conceived before.
The artist had grasped that conception evidently, for with no shading or
background, with only a filmy scarf outlining the form from the
colourless paper, the compelling features started vividly upon the
vision, as the individuality of the girl did upon the imagination. An
irritation followed the first impression. Was this child, or woman? What
was she to become, or what had she become already? Was she a soul
reaching out for realization, or a w