Her violet eyes were on her plate; her face was very pale. She was trembling; her even teeth were sunk deep into her full red lip. "Valyne!" I whispered. "What is it, darling?" She merely shook her head a little. She didn't speak or lift her eyes. "Copper and tin?" Sarah Kyle's cracked voice was repeating. "And ye found it profitable?" Doctor Kyle silently resumed his place. His wife asked some inaudible question, and I caught his whispered reply: "It's restless--hungry, perhaps. Jud is late, today." His dark, brilliant eyes looked across at me. "I must beg your pardon for this mystery, Clay. Please finish your supper. Later you will understand." Then he asked, as if to launch a conversation, "Have you any collection of Chinese art?" "No," I said jerkily. "Yes, a few pieces of good jade." I had too much else to think about. * * * * * Before the meal was done, there was a rapping at the back door. Answering it, Josepha Hand called: "Doctor, it's Jud." His haggard face was relieved. "Let him in," he called. "Let him take it down to Eben." The man Jud Geer passed across the end of the room, carrying a milk can. There was more fresh blood on his overalls. A stained bandage was wrapped around his head, to cover his lips where my fist had pulped them. His glassy, bulging eyes rolled toward me. They rested for a moment upon Valyne's still-bowed head, and I caught a lewd glitter in them. He went out toward the cellar. The doctor and his wife listened anxiously. I heard an eager, bestial whining, and the sound of thickly splashing liquid. Jud Geer came back into the room. He stopped by Doctor Kyle's chair, so close to me that I could hear the tick of his cheap watch. He held out his great, reddened hand, and muttered something through his bandage. But his filmed eyes were looking not at the doctor, but at Valyne. Doctor Kyle dropped some coins into his palm, and he put them into his pocket, without taking his eyes off the girl. Josepha Hand had opened the back door. At her impatient word, the gigantic butcher abruptly jerked his eyes away. He picked up his milk can, and went out. It was after he had gone that I looked at the floor where the can had rested. On the bare pine boards was a circle of dark red. I knew that its contents had been blood. Before I had time to digest that disturbing discovery, Eben Hand appeared again. His puffy face was strained and ashen; his colorless lips were twitching; his fat fingers nervously spelled out some hasty message. "What is it?" Doctor Kyle's hollow voice was apprehensive. "He says it won't touch it," said Josepha Hand. "It won't taste it. And he can't get it quiet. It keeps whimpering. He thinks it knows _he's_ in the house. He thinks it's calling for _him_." With that last word, her dark head jerked at me. Doctor Kyle's deep-sunk, flaming eyes came wonderingly to my face.