aking over Mrs. Brace's
head, and smiling a deprecatory recognition of the hopelessness of
contending with an infuriated woman.

She addressed them both.

"Smile all you please, now!" she threatened. "But the accounts aren't
balanced yet! Wait for what I choose to tell--what I intend to do!"

Suddenly she got herself in hand. It was as unexpected and thorough a
transformation as the one Hastings had seen twenty-four hours before
during her declaration of Webster's guilt. She had the same appearance
now as then, the same tautness of body, the same flat, constrained tone.

She turned to Wilton:

"I ask you again, will you help me as I asked you? Are you going to deny
me fair play?"

He looked at her in amazement, scowling.

"What fair play?" he exclaimed, and, without waiting for her reply, said
to Hastings: "She insists that I know young Webster killed her daughter,
that I can produce the evidence to prove it. Can you disabuse her mind?"

She surprised them by going, slowly and with apparent composure, toward
the corridor door. There she paused, looking at first one and then the
other with an evil smile so openly contemptuous that it affected them
strongly. There was something in it that made it flagrantly insulting.
Hastings turned away from her. Judge Wilton gave her look for look, but
his already flushed face coloured more darkly.

"Very well, Judge Wilton!" she gave him insolent good-bye, in which
there was also unmistakable threat. "You'll do the right thing sooner or
later--and as I tell you. You're--get this straight--you're not through
with me yet!"

She laughed, one low note, and, impossible as it seemed, proclaimed with
the harsh sound an absolute confidence in what she said.

"Nor you, Mr. Hastings!" she continued, taking her time with her words,
and waiting until the detective faced her again, before she concluded:
"You'll sing a different tune when you find I've got this affair in my
hands--tight!"

Still smiling her contempt, as if she enjoyed a feeling of superiority,
she left the room. When her footsteps died down the corridor, the two
men drew long breaths of relief.

Wilton broke the ensuing silence.

"Is she sane?"

"Yes," Hastings said, "so far as sanity can be said to exist in a mind
consecrated to evil."

The judge was surprised by the solemnity of the other's manner. "Why do
you say that?" he asked. "Do you know that much about her?"

"Who wouldn't?" Hastings retorted. "It's w