ut her hand to grasp it from the table where I had
laid it. Her avarice, her lack of any real deep feeling about the
matter, filled me with irrepressible anger.

I sprang to my feet and snatched the necklet up, case and all, and
flung it through the window.

"No, you shall certainly not have it," I exclaimed.

Suzee gave a shriek of pain and dismay as she saw the beloved jewels
flash through the air and disappear in the darkness, and rushed to the
window as if she would jump after them.

Fearing she might call to the passers-by below and create a
disturbance, I took her by the shoulder and pulled her back into the
room.

Then I shut the window and bolted it above her head.

I walked over to the door of the room.

"You had better go to bed," I said; "do not wait for me, I shall sleep
elsewhere."

Then I went out and locked the door behind me, putting the key in my
pocket.

I went down the passage slowly. My heart was beating fast and I felt
angry, but the anger was not that deep fierce agony of emotion I had
felt at times when Viola angered or grieved me.

It was more a superficial sensation of disgust and repulsion that
filled me, and, after a few minutes, I grew calm and recovered my
self-possession.

"What could I expect from a girl like this?" I asked myself. "What
could I expect but lies and deceit and trickery and infidelity? She
had shewn me all these at Sitka when I first met her."

I had been willing enough to profit by them, but even then they had
disgusted me. Now I was in the position of Hop Lee, and as she had
treated him so would she treat me. It was true she professed to love
me, and did so in her way. But it was the way of the woman who is
bought and sold.

And why should I feel specially repelled because I had found her with
a servant? Had she not come from a tea-shop in Sitka, where she
herself was serving?

The Mexican boy was handsome enough. Doubtless he presented a
temptation to her.

It was all my own fault, everything that had happened or would happen,
for choosing such an unsuitable companion. The light loves of an hour
with painted butterflies such as Suzee are well enough, but for life
together one must seek and find one's equal, one who sees with the
same eyes, who has the same standard as one's own of the fitness of
things, in whose veins runs blood of the same quality as one's own.

Why had Viola left me? The thought came with a pang of anguish as my
heart called out f