"Again I thank you for bringing him here for me, and now I must ask
you to surrender him to me, that I may turn him over to his foster
parents." As he concluded Rokoff held out his hands for the child,
a nasty grin of vindictiveness upon his lips.
To his surprise Jane Clayton rose and, without a word of protest,
laid the little bundle in his arms.
"Here is the child," she said. "Thank God he is beyond your power
to harm."
Grasping the import of her words, Rokoff snatched the blanket from
the child's face to seek confirmation of his fears. Jane Clayton
watched his expression closely.
She had been puzzled for days for an answer to the question of
Rokoff's knowledge of the child's identity. If she had been in
doubt before the last shred of that doubt was wiped away as she
witnessed the terrible anger of the Russian as he looked upon the
dead face of the baby and realized that at the last moment his
dearest wish for vengeance had been thwarted by a higher power.
Almost throwing the body of the child back into Jane Clayton's
arms, Rokoff stamped up and down the hut, pounding the air with his
clenched fists and cursing terribly. At last he halted in front
of the young woman, bringing his face down close to hers.
"You are laughing at me," he shrieked. "You think that you have
beaten me--eh? I'll show you, as I have shown the miserable ape
you call `husband,' what it means to interfere with the plans of
Nikolas Rokoff.
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