'What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is
threatened?'

'I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it
is.'

'And was this all, to-night?'

'This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so
closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed
and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't
bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one.
Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not
be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me--who
am so much afraid of him--courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay
with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself.'

The lustrous gipsy-face drooped over the clinging arms and bosom,
and the wild black hair fell down protectingly over the childish
form. There was a slumbering gleam of fire in the intense dark
eyes, though they were then softened with compassion and
admiration. Let whomsoever it most concerned look well to it!



CHAPTER VIII--DAGGERS DRAWN



The two young men, having seen the damsels, their charges, enter