He looks up; his eyes fall upon a face that boasts of extreme beauty, a
face of wondrous black eyes and cheeks aflame, a face that, set in sable
coils of hair, would drive an artist wild with the desire to transfer
its charms to canvas.

And John Craig, strange man, frowns.

Evidently there is something in his composition that prevents him from
accepting what the prodigal gods have thrown in his path.

"You?" he says, bluntly, and with disdain.

The woman with the black eyes smiles sweetly as she continues to
soothingly touch his forehead, which throbs and burns as though he
endures the keenest pain.

"Did you imagine it could be any other, my dear John? You deserted me,
but I believe you failed to know your own mind. At any rate I have
determined not to desert you."

"Pauline, you do not--it is impossible for you to care for me after what
has happened."

"Impossible! Why should it be? I can't help myself. I have seen others
profess to love me, have played with them as a queen might with her
subjects who prostrated themselves before her. Yet, John Craig, I never
loved but once. You have stirred my heart to its depths. I am not able
to analyze these feelings. I only know what I know."

She does not feel the modesty of a young girl; much acting before the