Miriam stared at Corbin. Was the man demented? Her eyes left his face and fell on his hand as he stood stroking her coat. It was a remarkably small hand for a man, well-shaped, the long, creeping fingers stained with soil from the grave. The seal ring on his third finger caught on a button as she sprang back.
“Don’t touch me!”
Corbin paid not the slightest attention to her command. His eyes aflame with desire, he stepped after Miriam and caught her hand, fawning upon her—
“You’re a nurse, Miss,” he whined. “Gimme a deck to-night.” He saw her expression of dawning comprehension and clung to her hand more tightly than before.
Miriam wrenched her hand free. At last she understood—Corbin was a cocaine addict. For the first time she felt a twinge of fear as her glance swept the lonely countryside. Of all the demoralizing drugs, cocaine was the worst—whisky raised to its nth power was pap compared to it.
“I have none, Corbin,” she said, hiding her abhorrence of the man under a brusque manner. “We nurses are no longer permitted to keep a supply of narcotics on hand.”
“Doctor Roberts will let ye have a shot,” eagerly. “Ye need never tell him it’s for me.”
“Go to him yourself.”
Corbin stared at her for a long moment, his bloodshot eyes taking in her beauty appraisingly. The collar of her coat had turned back and he caught a glimpse of a gold chain. Martha had told him of rubies which she had seen around the nurse’s neck.
“I’ll take care o’ Roberts,” he said thickly. “But me an’ you are goin’ to come to an understandin’ right now. Hand over that gold chain. Ye won’t!—then, by God—”