Folding his arms across his breast, the outlaw chief walked up and down across the soft, echoless carpet, his gloomy eyes fixed immovably upon the little crouching figure with the graceful head bowed on the clasped hands.
Jaquelina looked very childish and forlorn as she crouched there.
Quite suddenly she broke into a perfectly audible sob of grief and self-pity.
"I shall miss Violet Earle's party after all. And I had been so happy over it!"
It was the cry of a child over a broken toy, yet its artless pathos pierced the man's heart. He went quickly and knelt down beside her.
"Little one, what is this that you grieve for?" he asked, almost tenderly; "tell me?"
"It is only—only," sobbed the girl, "that you will cause me to lose the happiest hour of my life."
"Poor child! and life has so few happy hours," said the outlaw chief. "Tell me what it is you lament so much. Perhaps I may relent."
"It was Miss Violet Earle's lawn-party to-morrow night," sobbed Jaquelina. "She had invited me. I—I was never at a party in my life, and I wanted so much to see what it was like."
The listener frowned, then smiled beneath his concealing mask.