public has made her brazen, this midnight beauty with the glowing eyes
black as sloes, the pouting lips, the figure of a Hebe.

John Craig may have seen adventures before in his life, and probably has
been in many a fix, being fond of spending his vacations in rambling
over the wilderness away up in the Michigan peninsula, with a gun on his
shoulder; but plainly he has now met the crisis of his whole career.

"Pauline, I am a frank fellow, as you know. It is not in me to dissemble.
I am going to speak plainly with you," he says, rising to a sitting
posture, and looking the actress full in the eyes.

She moves uneasily, and her cheeks, which were erstwhile tinted with
scarlet, grow pallid. Then she sets her teeth and with a smile continues:

"That is right, I hate a deceiver worse than anything else on earth. It
was your honest way, John Craig, that first drew me toward you. Yes,
speak your mind."

Evidently she is in part prepared for the worst, though she has hoped
that the old witchery might be thrown about the young doctor.

"When you treated me in that merciless way, long ago, the regard I felt
for you died out of my heart--your spell was broken."

"Ah! John, you have thought so, perhaps, just as I did, but I learned
that these affections of ours are deeper than we suspect. I believed I
had dropped you forever, but time has taught me what a terrible wrench
it must be that would tear the image of John Craig from my heart."