"
She smiled again. It was a weary smile, however, not like the former
flash of amusement she had shown. Her head drooped as her mind sank
into unhappy retrospection. Tunis looked aside at her with a great
hunger in his heart to take all her trouble--no matter what it
was--upon his own mind and give her the freedom she needed. What or
who the girl was did not matter. Even what she had done, or what
she had not done meant little to Tunis Latham.
She was the one girl in all this world who had ever interested him
beyond a passing moment, and he was convinced that she alone would
ever interest him. The cheap environment of their meeting meant
nothing. If she was free, her own mistress, and he could get her, he
meant to make this girl his wife.
"You didn't tell me your name," he said directly. "Won't you? I have
been frank with you."
"Why, so you have," said the girl. There might have been a strata of
laughter underlying the words; yet her face was sober enough. "If
you really wish to know, Captain Latham, my name is Macklin."
"_Miss_ Macklin?" he asked, a positive tremor in his voice.
"Certainly. Sheila Macklin, spinster."
Tunis drew a long breath. That was enough! He would take his chance
in the game with any other man as long as she was not promised.
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