from the ringer's hands, but Saxham is not diverted by it from his
occupation. With that curious fatuity to which the most logical of us are
prone, he has been conning over the brief, scorching sentences with which
he means to strip the other man's deception bare to the light, and make
known his own self-appointed mission to avenge her.

"They telephoned for me, and I have come, but not in the interests of
your sick or wounded man. Because it was imperative that I should say this
to you: Your engagement to Miss Mildare and your approaching marriage to
her were announced in to-day's _Siege Gazette_. You have received many
congratulations. Now take mine--liar, and coward, and cheat!"

And with each epithet, delivered with all the force of Saxham's muscular
arm, shall fall a stinging blow of the heavy old hunting-crop. There will
be a shout, an angry oath from Beauvayse, staggering back under the
unexpected, savage chastisement, red bars marring the insolent, high-bred
beauty of the face that has bewitched her. Saxham will continue:

"You approached this innocent, inexperienced girl as a lover. You
represented yourself to her and to her mother-guardian as a single man.
All this when you had already a wife at home in England--a gaudy stage
butterfly sleek with carrion-juices, whose wings are jewelled by the vices
of men; and who is worthy of you, as you are of her. I speak as I can
prove. Here is the written testimony of a reliable witness to your
marriage with Miss Lavigne. And now you will go to her and show yourself
to her in your true colours. You will undeceive her, or----"

There is a foggy uncertainty about what is to follow after that "or." But
the livid flames of the burning hell that is in Saxham throw upon the
greyness a leaping reflection that is red like blood. A fight to the
death, either with weapons, or, best of all, with the bare hands, is what
Saxham secretly lusts for, and savours in anticipation as he goes.

Let the humanitarian say what he pleases. Man is a manslayer by instinct
and by will.

And within the little area of this beleaguered town do not men kill, and
are not men killed, every day? The conditions are mediaeval, fast relapsing
into the primeval. The modern sanctity and inviolability attending and
surrounding human life are at a discount. Even for children, the grim King
of Terrors had become a bugaboo to laugh at; red wounds and ghastly sights
are things of everyday experience; there i