The White Blackbird by Hudson Douglas [Illustrated]

• Table of contents with working links to chapters is included
• The book has been corrected for spelling and grammatical errors
• Illustrated book
"I'd far rather beg in the gutter than marry you, Jasper!" flashed the girl, at last goaded past all patience. Her clouded, indignant eyes expressed both contempt and aversion for the young man leaning over the deck-rail beside her.

He was still a young man as years go and in spite of the grey streaks in his dark hair, the crow's-feet above his cheek-bones; more than passably good-looking, too, with his regular profile and straight, spare, athletic figure, though his sleepy eyes were a trifle close-set and more than a trifle untrustworthy, though the black moustache he was twirling with a long, thin, almost womanish hand hid a cruel, selfish mouth.

In his smart white yachting-suit and panama, lounging over the sun-dried teak taffrail with his knees crossed, he seemed to be neither oppressed by the tropical heat nor impressed at all by anything that his companion could say.

"I'd far rather beg in the gutter," she repeated, as if to settle the matter. And the emphasis with which she spoke showed that she meant what she said.

"But—that doesn't make any difference, my dear Sallie," he once more answered, displaying his white, even teeth in a slight, amused smile. "You're going to marry me just the same. And you may as well make up your mind right away—that it will pay you best to be pleasant about it.

"Captain Dove has come to the point at last," he went on to explain condescendingly, in the same cool, careless, conversational tone, a tone which, however, could not quite hide the ugly determination behind it. "You've upset him for good and all this time. He's aching to get rid of you now. In fact, he's cursing himself that he didn't—when he might have made more out of the deal. And, anyhow, he's promised you to me."

The girl's slim, shapely body had suddenly stiffened. She started up and away from him with a gesture of blind repulsion. Her pure, proud, sensitive face showed the struggle that was going on in her mind—between fear and hope; quick fear that what he had just said might be true, slow hope that he had been lying to her again.

He had turned on one elbow with a lazy air of inexhaustible tolerance, that he might the more conveniently follow her with his greedy glance. He was apparently quite sure of himself—and her. At any rate, he was openly gloating over her beauty in her distress while she stood gazing in dire dismay about the shabby, unkempt little steamer which was all the home she had in the world, all the home she had ever had except for a few forgotten years of her childhood.