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RESTLESS EARTH
171

nauseated. Everything was wrong! It was all wrong!

She prayed that the night might be eternal. She had no desire to endure the hopeless longing of a fresh day. She was an outcast—a wanderer on the face of the earth. Oh, that she had courage to end it all! And yet, some day she might meet Jimmy again. Someday he might grow tired of his grief and his conscience——

At last she threw herself face downwards upon the bed, her arms stretched above her head, her heart crying for James Harley.

Presently she slept.

A light, insistent touch upon her shoulder awakened her. She sat up swiftly, startled.

The knight, Baden, stood beside her bed and looked down with a confident smile. He was swathed in an expensive dressing-gown, and his feet were bare.

“Hello, old thing,” he whispered.

Patricia, wise in the ways of the road, rose to her feet angrily. The knight retreated a step and his smile vanished as she confronted him.

“Get out!” she commanded in a low voice, pointing to the door.

“Now look here, Pat,” whispered the intruder, making hushing motions with his outspread hands and frowning warningly, “don’t behave as though———”

“Get out!” she repeated a little louder. “Get out, before I have you thrown out!”

The knight’s lower jaw came forward and his lips pouted. For a moment it seemed that he would lay violent hands upon her. He moved forward a step.

The girl did not flinch.

“Get out!”

The knight relaxed, shrugged his shoulders, smiled whimsically, and turned to the door.

“My mistake,” he apologised, as he unlocked and opened the door softly. “But, tell me this,” he requested, thrusting his head in again when he had stepped into the corridor. “What kind of woman