e kitchen! any girl,
even if she had the making of an Olympia Packard, if you did not know
that it was in your power to shake her off when you got ready to assert
yourself, or better prospects offered? The cipher and the desirability
you expressed of a means of communication unreadable save by you
two,--all this was enough to start the suspicion; your own manner has
done the rest. Mr. Steele, you are both a villain and a bastard, and
have no right in law to this woman. Contradict me if you dare."

"I dare, but will not," was the violent reply. "I shall not give you
even that satisfaction. This woman who has gone through the ceremony
of marriage with both of us shall never know to which of us she is the
legal wife. Perhaps it is as good a revenge as the other. It certainly
will interfere as much with her peace."

"Oh, oh, not that! I can not bear that!" leaped in anguish from her
lips. "I am a pure woman, let no such torture be inflicted upon me.
Speak! tell the truth as you are the son of a woman you would have us
believe honest."

A smile then, cold but alive with gloating triumph, altered the straight
line of his lips for an instant as he advanced toward the door. "A woman
over the possession of whom it is an honor to quarrel!" were his words
as he passed the mayor with a bow.

I looked to see the mayor spring and grasp him by the throat, but that
was left for another hand. As the secretary bent to touch the door it
suddenly flew violently open and Nixon, quivering in every limb and with
his face afire, sprang in and seized upon the other with a violence of
passion which would have been deadly had there been any strength behind
it.

It was but child's play for so strong a man as Mr. Steele to shake off
so futile a grasp, and he did so with a rasping laugh. But the next
moment he was tottering, blanched and helpless, and while struggling
to right himself and escape, yielded more and more to a sudden weakness
sapping his life-vigor, till he fell prone and apparently lifeless on
the lounge toward which, with a final effort, he had thrown himself.

"Good! Good!" rang thrilling through the room, as the old man reeled
back from the wall against which he had been cast. "God has finished
what these old arms had only strength enough to begin. He is dead this
time, and it's a mercy! Thank God, Miss Olympia! thank God as I do now
on my knees!" But here catching the mayor's eye, he faltered to his feet
again, saying humbly