"My dear girl, it's not a question of being afraid. It's my word—my duty to Belding."
"You said you loved me. If you love me you will go... You don't love me!"
Gale could only stare at this transformed girl.
"Dick, listen!... If you go—if you fetch some word of Thorne to comfort Mercedes, you—well, you will have your reward."
"Nell!"
Her dangerous sweetness was as amazing as this newly revealed character.
"Dick, will you go?"
"No-no!" cried Gale, in violence, struggling with himself. "Nell Burton, I'll tell you this. To have the reward I want would mean pretty near heaven for me. But not even for that will I break my word to your father."
She seemed the incarnation of girlish scorn and wilful passion.
"Gracias, senor," she replied, mockingly. "Adios." Then she flashed out of his sight.