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She stepped back with a spring of terror, trying to pull her wrist

fro face close to

hers She put her other hand behind her, and clutched at the banister-

rail of the stairs She stared at hi h he were reading it word by word,

aloud, froe of her face, "He--did--not--lie" He dropped

her wrist; flung it froain

neither of the breath "So, this

is life," he said, in a curiously h of it" He turned as he spoke, and went quietly out into the

night

Helena Richie sat down on the lowest step of the stairs She breathed

in gasps Suddenly she looked at her arm on which were four deep red

s of her

mind, flayed and stabbed by the boy's words, this physical pain of

which she had just beco lotion

She stroked her wrist tenderly, jealous of the lessening s lest the sin She looked with blind eyes at the laot up and turned the wick down; it had been shtly and