. The
cheek-bones were high, and the chin thick and receding. The girl
pressed close to his side as he held the thing in his lap with an odd
mixture of interest and fear.

"Aren't its eyes odd?" she exclaimed instantly.

They consisted of two polished stones as clear as diamonds, as
brightly eager as spiders' eyes. The light striking them caused them
to shine and glisten as though alive.

The girl glanced from the image to the man on the floor who looked now
more like a figure recumbent upon a mausoleum than a living man. It
was as though she was trying to guess the relationship between these
two. She had seen many such carved things as this upon her foreign
journeys with her father. It called him back strongly to her. She
turned again to the image and, attracted by the glitter in the eyes,
took it into her own lap.

Wilson watched her closely. He had an odd premonition of danger--a
feeling that somehow it would be better if the girl had not seen the
image. He even put out his hand to take it away from her, but was
arrested by the look of eagerness which had quickened her face. Her
cheeks had taken on color, her breathing came faster, and her whole
frame quivered with excitement.

"Better give the thing back to me," he said at length. He placed one
hand upon it but she resisted him.

"Come," he insisted, "I'll take it back to where I found it."

She raised her head with a nervous toss.

"No. Let it alone. Let me have it."

She drew it away from his hand. He stepped to her side, impelled by
something he could not analyze, and snatched it from her grasp. Her
lips quivered as though she were about to cry. She had never looked
more beautiful to him than she did at that moment. He felt a wave of
tenderness for her sweep over him. She was such a young-looking girl
to be here alone at the mercy of two men. At this moment she looked so
ridiculously like a little girl deprived of her doll that he was
inclined to give it back to her again with a laugh. But he paused. She
did not seem to be wholly herself. It was clear enough that the image
had produced some very distinct impression upon her--whether of a
nature akin to her crystal gazing he could not tell, although he
suspected something of the sort. The wounded man still lay prone upon
the rug before the fire. His muttering had ceased and his breathing
seemed more regular.

"Please," trembled the girl. "Please to let me take it again."

"Why do you wish it?"

"O