Breathless and trembling, he spoke in a strangely little voice; but his staring eyes lighted with a sudden and desperate resolution.

"Help me with her," he begged.

"She won't listen.

The woman's out of her wits." He caught Rudolph by the arm; and standing for a moment like close friends, the two panting rivals watched her in stupefaction.

She ransacked a great cedar chest, a table, shelves, boxes, and strewed the contents on the floor,--silk scarfs, shining Benares brass, Chinese silver, vivid sarongs from the Preanger regency, Kyoto cloisonne, a wild heap of plunder from the bazaars of all the nations where Gilly's meagre earnings had been squandered.