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As for Elsa, she felt the grip as of an icy hand upon her heart.

It was some one else that he meant. Was it possible that all her

carefully planned campaign had come to this miserable failure?

Had she come this far only to lose all?

The expression of her features did not change, and she sought

desperately to control her emotion, but she could not prevent two

great tears from welling up in her eyes and slowly rolling down

her cheeks.

Code sat startled and nonplused. Only once before in his life had

he seen a woman cry, and that was when Nellie broke down in his

mother's house after the fire. But the cause for that was

evident, and the very fact of her tears had been a relief to him.

Now, apparently without rime or reason, Elsa Mallaby was weeping.

The sight went to his heart as might the scream of a child in

pain. He wondered with a panicky feeling whether he had hurt her

in any way.