y Gerard," came the
unexpected response. The other started violently. "Your lordship will
forgive the assumption in view of what occurred on a certain stormy
night at sea, when a drowning wretch clung with one hand to a gunwale,
and you, in answer to his appeal for succor, bent over and--"

"It's a lie!" The words fell in a sharp whisper.

"What?" John Steele's laugh sounded mirthlessly. "However, we will give
a charitable interpretation to the act; the boat was already
overcrowded; one more might have endangered all. Call it an impulse of
self-preservation. Self-preservation," he repeated; "the struggle of the
survival of the fittest! Let the episode go. Especially as your lordship
incidentally did me a great service; a very great service." The other
stared at him. "I should have looked at it only in that light, and then
it would not have played me the trick it did of affording a false
hypothesis for a certain conclusion. Your lordship knows what I mean,
how the true facts in this case of Amy Gerard have come to light?"

John Steele's glance was straight, direct; if the other had the paper,
had read it, he would know.

Lord Ronsdale looked toward the bell, hesitated. "I think you had better
tell me," he said at last.

"If your lordship did not kill the woman--if the 'Frisco Pet did not,
then who did?" Ronsdale leaned forward just in the least; his eyes
seemed to look into the other's as if to ask how much, just what, he had
learned. John Steele studied the nobleman with a purpose of his own.
"Why, she killed herself," he said suddenly.

"How?" The nobleman uttered this word, then stopped; John Steele waited.
Had Lord Ronsdale been surprised at his knowledge? He could hardly tell,
from his manner, whether or not he had the affidavit and had read it.

"How--interesting!" The nobleman was willing to continue the verbal
contest a little longer; that seemed a point gained. "May I ask how it
occurred?"

"Oh, it is all very commonplace! Your lordship had received a
threatening letter and called on the woman. She wanted money; you
refused. She already had a husband living in France, a ruined gambler of
the Bourse, but had tricked you into thinking she was your wife. You had
discovered the deception and discarded her. From a music-hall singer she
had gone down--down, until she, once beautiful, courted, had become a
mere--what she was, associate of one like Dandy Joe, cunning,
unscrupulous. At your refusal to become the