She was a young, soft creature, very pretty in a kittenish fashion,
both sensuous and helpless. It was an easy guess that unless fortune
stood her friend she was a predestined victim to the world's selfish
love of pleasure, and fortune, with a cynical smile, had stood aside
and let her go her way.

"I . . . I . . ." A wave of color flooded her face. She twisted a rag
of a handkerchief into a hard wadded knot.

"Spit it out," he ordered curtly.

"I've got to do something . . . soon. Won't you--won't you--?" There
was a wail of despair in the unfinished sentence.

James Cunningham was a grim, gray pirate, as malleable as cast iron and
as soft. He was a large, big-boned man, aggressive, dominant, the kind
that takes the world by the throat and shakes success from it. The
contour of his hook-nosed face had something rapacious written on it.

"No. Not till I get good and ready. I've told you I'd look out for
you if you'd keep still. Don't come whining at me. I won't have it."

"But--"

Already he was ripping letters open and glancing over them. Tears
brimmed the brown eyes of the girl. She bit her lower lip, choked back
a sob, and turned hopelessly away. Her misfortune lay at her own door.
She knew that. But-- The woe in her heart was that the man she had
loved was leaving her to face alone a night as bleak as death.