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ONE:He ran to meet her, for his legs tottered so that he could not walk. He could not frame his question, but she answered it:"Don't you know me?" continued the siren, tilting her hat back from her face.

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ONE:Holgrave raised himself erect as the men departed. Wild thoughts, such as he had never known before, rushed through his heart. It is dangerous to snatch from any man, even the lowest of the species, that which he values above every other thing. Be the thing what it may��be it grand or mean, base or beautiful, still the soul has clung to it, has treasured it up, has worshipped before it; and none but the bereaved can comprehend the desolation which the bereavement causes. Holgrave's idol was his freedom; it was the thing he had prized above all things else; it was the thing he had been taught to revere, even as the religion he professed. It must, therefore, have had a strong hold upon his feelings; it must have grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength: and this it is necessary to understand before a perfect idea can be formed of the hatred which he now felt towards the man who had wrested from him his treasure. It is true he might have rejected his terms, at the sacrifice of a thing of less value��his life; but there was then love and hope to contend against him��the hope of a man and a father. But he had now no longer hope; it had fled with the spirit of his little babe; its last faint breath had dissipated all the illusions of far-off happiness; and he now looked forward to a life of degradation, and a death of dishonour.

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ONE:"Your servant...."

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ONE:Then suddenly a great, a magnificent, a triumphant idea struck him. He nearly staggered under the force of it. He was like a general who sees what he had looked upon hitherto as a mere trivial skirmish develop into a battle which may win him the whole campaign. He spoke almost faintly.