Then, scarce daring to breathe, I waited to catch their words. Of this shabby-genteel fellow, evidently her lover, I was madly jealous; but my anger was instantly changed to surprise when I heard the nature of their conversation. "But you must!" he was saying earnestly. "I tell you, I won't!" she answered decisively. "The risk is too great--far too great." "But as I've already told you, it's absolutely imperative." He spoke roughly, but with a refinement which showed him to be educated. He bore outward evidence of having come down in the world. "I wouldn't act like that if I were offered a thousand pounds," she declared. "But it must be done," he urged. "Not by me." "Do you intend to back out, then?" he inquired roughly. "I merely tell you plainly that you and your ruffianly associates have gone quite far enough. That's all," she answered calmly. Her words were not those which a woman usually uses towards her lover. He gave vent to a short, brutal laugh, as if enjoying her indignation. "It's all very well to talk like this, Aline," he said; "but you know quite well that argument is useless. You must do it." "I will not, I tell you!" she cried fiercely. "Well, we shall see," he answered. "Recollect that you are one of us, and as such, to break away is impossible." "I know that, only too well," she answered bitterly. "But it is terrible--horrible! As each day passes I am more and more convinced that the truth must soon be discovered." "And if it is?" "I will never live to bear the exposure," she said, in the hoarse, low voice of one desperate. "My dear girl," he exclaimed, "you who have beauty and a plausible tongue have the world before you; yet you always refuse to seize your opportunity. You who possess the power of the King of Evil, whose touch is deadly and whose caress is venomous, could rule an empire if you wished; yet you are inert, lethargic, and refuse to assist us, even in this." "I will not sin deeper than I have already sinned," she answered. "I will have no hand in it." "Why not?" "It is horrible!" she protested. "And I tell you, once and for all, that I will have nothing to do with the affair." "You're a fool!" he cried roughly. "True! I am, or I would never have fallen thus into the trap you and your friends baited so cunningly." "You are beautiful!" he answered, with a harsh laugh. "A beautiful woman is always a safe trap for fools." "If men admire me I cannot help it; if they love me then it is against my wish, for since that day long ago, when the Spirit of Evil entered into me, love has known no place in my heart." "Well spoken!" he exclaimed. "If you have no love for him the rest is quite easy." "Though all love within me is dead, I yet have a woman's heart, and womanly feeling," she said. "I know that my beauty is only a curse; I am well aware that men who have admired me have been drawn irresistibly to their doom. Ah!" and she shuddered in shame, "it is terrible-- terrible!"