So, with the fading light, she betook
herself to the bedroom.
But there was no relief. It was haunted to-night, teeming with the
fancies of a dreading imagination. It seemed to her like the cell of a
condemned prisoner.
The day had passed heavily, drearily. Every moment of it had been
filled with the thought that Jeff was on his way to Orrville. On his
way to meet Dug McFarlane. On his way to meet the one man in whose
hands her whole fate lay. He alone knew the source of the ten thousand
dollars which she had carried back to her paternal home as the net
result of her first marriage. He alone knew it to be the price of the
blood of men, amongst whom was the twin brother of her present husband.
Memory was alive, and full of a poignant torture. It brought back to
her the scene when she had driven her first husband to help her to the
money she had desired to possess. He had spoken, in his horror and
anger, of "blood money," of "Judas," and she would not hear. She had
derided him, she had lashed him with the scorn of an unbridled tongue,
she had turned upon him in her selfish craving, without a thought of
any principle.
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