s time in a higher key.

Nellie alone stood her ground. She was desperate. Death was staring
her in the face, and she was staring back as if fascinated.

"Harvey! Harvey!" she cried, through bloodless lips. "Don't do it!
Think of Phoebe! Think of your child!"

Rachel was stealing down the hall. The little Napoleon suddenly
realised her purpose and thwarted it.

"Come back here!" he shouted. The trembling maid could not obey for a
very excellent reason. She dropped to the floor as if shot, and,
failing in the effort to crawl under a low hall-seat, remained there,
prostrate and motionless.

He then addressed himself to Nellie, first cocking the pistol in a
most cold-blooded manner. Paying no heed to the commands and
exhortations of the men, or the whines of the women, he announced:--

"That's just what I've come here to ask you to do, Nellie; think of
Phoebe. Will you promise me to----"

"I'll promise nothing!" cried Nellie, exasperated. She was beginning
to feel ridiculous, which was much worse than feeling terrified. "You
can't bluff me, Harvey, not for a minute."

"I'm not trying to bluff you," he protested. "I'm simply asking you to
think. You can think, can't you? If you can't think here with all this
noise going on, come into the parlour. We can talk it all over quietly
and--why, great Scott, I don't want to kill anybody!" Noting an abrupt
change in the attitude of the men, who found some encouragement in his
manner, he added hastily, "Unless I have to, of course. Here, you!
Don't get up!" The command was addressed to Fairfax. "I'd kind of like
to take a shot at you, just for fun."

"Harvey," said his wife, quite calmly, "if you don't put that thing
in your pocket and go away I will have you locked up as sure as I'm
standing here."

"I ask you once more to come into the parlour and talk it over with
me," said he, wavering.

"And I refuse," she cried, furiously.

"Go and have it out with him, Nellie," groaned Fairfax, lifting his
head above the edge of the table, only to lower it instantly as
Harvey's hand wabbled unsteadily in a sort of attempt to draw a bead
on him.

"Well, why don't you shoot?" demanded Nellie, curtly.

"No! No!" roared Fairfax.

"No! No!" shrieked the women.

"For two cents I would," stammered Harvey, quite carried away by the
renewed turmoil.

"You would do anything for two cents," said Nellie, sarcastically.

"I'd shoot myself for two cents," he wailed, dismally. "I'm no