"Twenty thousand dollars!" angrily exclaimed Virginia, for the moment forgetting herself, and then again her voice fell almost to a whisper. "You dare ask that from me! Knowing that I have but to call and the police would hound you to prison." Jack swiftly wheeled about and rolled his eyes in alarm. The word police startled him, and for the moment he verily believed they were within call, a circumstance he at once set down to his lax watchfulness, but he soon felt reassured, and, turning upon her said, sarcastically: "Oh, that-a beesa a lettle a da game-a. He, he, he, he," he laughed low and gleefully, in strange contrast to the white of his eyeballs, which shone with sinister effect as he leered at her. "Two play-a dees-a da trick, Signora! Wouldn't yous-a look-a da well bees-a compan-e-on ove-a mine, in a da pen, eh, Signora. He, he, he, he," he again laughed. "Eesa don-a da know some-a da ting about eesa da Duc, eh! Eesa don-a da hear a da game between ee mand a da Signora da Virginia, eh! Sacremento!" He fairly ground out the last word between his teeth. Virginia shuddered and then involuntarily exclaimed: "Villain!" Jack turned upon her swiftly, ceremoniously bowed, and again leered at her. Then, with a most offensive smirk playing about his mouth, said: "Tank-a da Signora, my a da pard." Her face burned with the red that flushed up. She felt that even the darkness could not conceal her flaming cheeks. She bent her head in humiliation and shame at the all too well merited rebuke. For a moment there followed intense stillness. She thought of what he had possibly heard at the Harris reception. "His disclosure would incriminate me with Rutley. Still, it matters not. My duty to my God, my home and Constance is to make reparation for the wrong I have done." She broke the silence in an assumed, haughty tone. "Well, as you are poor and in need, I will give you five hundred dollars upon return of the child; but if you do not comply by noon tomorrow I shall inform the police." "Eesa bett-a note!" he replied, with an unmistakable menace in his voice. "Eef yourse da squeal on a da ma, Signora--look-a da out!" And so saying, he slowly drew his finger across his throat. The action was most significant. "Eesa bett-a da keep a da mum! Understand-a! Youse-a geeve a me a da twenty da thouse-a dollair, youse-a take a da kid--but youse-a da squeal!" and he drew close and hissed at her--"Bett-a da look a for her eesa mong a da weeds in a da Willamette." His attitude was so threatening, and his speech uttered with such savage earnestness, that it drove all courage from her heart. Again she felt, as once before, at the Harris reception, how puny a thing she was in the presence of a strong, masculine rascal. She, however, quickly mastered the momentary sickening alarm that had seized her, and assuming a bold, threatening manner, in which she astonished herself, for she felt anything but defiant just then, said in a voice low and determined: