a slim, bird-like creature, with a poise to her head and an up-
tilt to her chin which warned that the man had not yet beaten her
to the level of the woman. She was dressed in a faded calico,
frayed at the bottom, and with the sleeves bobbed off just above
the elbows of her slim white arms. Her stockings were mottled with
patches and mends, and her shoes were old, and worn out at the
toes.

But to Peter, worshipping her from his hiding place, she was the
most beautiful thing in the world. Jolly Roger had said the same
thing, and most men--and women, too--would have agreed that this
slip of a girl possessed a beauty which it would take a long time
for unhappiness and torture to crush entirely out of her. Her eyes
were as blue as the violets Peter had thrust his nose among that
day. And her hair was a glory, loosed by her exertion from its
bondage of faded ribbon, and falling about her shoulders and
nearly to her waist in a mass of curling brown tresses that at
times had made even Jed Hawkins' one eye light of with admiration.
And yet, even in those times, he hated her, and more than once his
bony fingers had closed viciously in that mass of radiant hair,
but seldom could he wring a scream of pain from Nada. Even now,
when she could see the light of the devil in his one gleaming eye,
it was only her flesh--and not her soul--that was afraid.

But the strain had begun to show its mark. In the blue of her eyes
was the look of one who was never free of haunting visions, her
cheeks were pallid, and a little too thin, and the vivid redness
of her lips was not of health and happiness, but a touch of the
color which should have been in her face, and which until now had
refused to die.