The man’s face was livid now, for he felt all that he uttered. But the woman was wholly unmoved. She gazed fixedly at him a moment and said: “Poor creature, you already haunt me while living. You will haunt me less when dead, for then you know I will be a widow, and I can find some one else to love me, for I’ll tell you now that one reason why I do not attempt your rescue is because I have discovered that I cannot win the man whom I love. I see with wide-open eyes, Arden, and I have seen that the man I sought to win, and believed that I could, is madly in love with your sister.” “With my sister?” gasped the outlaw. “Oh, yes, with your beautiful sister.” “Where did he know her?” “Only since she has been here.” “He knows her to be my sister?” “Yes, and pitied her, and pity begets love, you know.” “Does he know aught else about her?” “What else is there for him to know?” “Only that she is pure, beautiful, and good, a possessor of a fortune of her own, and mine, for I was disinherited, and that she is the sister of Silk Lasso Sam.” “I do not believe that he knows aught of her other than that her face shows her virtues, and her tongue has confessed to him the shame of being _your_ sister,” was the studied reply of Nina de Sutro. The outlaw was deeply impressed by what he had been told by Nina de Sutro. Could it be really true that a man had fallen in love with his sister, knowing nothing more about her than that she was his sister? Yet when he remembered how lovely she was in face and form, how noble was her nature, and the imprint of her pure soul was stamped upon every feature, he did not wonder that she could win the love of any one. At last, after a silence that began to be painful to Nina de Sutro, in spite of her nerve, and her daring defiance of the man, the outlaw said: “I am remarkably situated, I think.” “How so?” “Well, I have a beautiful wife, who has learned to love another man, who in his turn loves another. That other is my lovely sister, about whom all that is known is that she is the sister of Silk Lasso Sam.” “Well, it shows how unworthily two beautiful women have loved, for I simply apply to myself the praise you have bestowed, not to speak of many others.” “Oh, yes, you are beautiful--so is a serpent.” “Thanks.” “Now, to this man?” “Who?” “The one who you say has fallen in love with my sister.” “What of him?” “That is what I wish to ask you, Miss De Sutro?” “Well, he is a man in the true sense of the word, one of nature’s noblemen, as they say in novels. He is handsome, too, has won a deserved name for gallantry on the field, and what is most remarkable, is popular with both men and women.” “He must be a saint, or a devil, for you know wicked men win women.” “Yes, I have had a very sad experience in that respect.” “But continue, please, with your description of your hero.”