xt room
the Sergeant, with bluff and almost brutal straightforwardness, was
telling her the story of Rosenblatt's dreadful end. "And then, begad!
after grilling the wretch for all that time, didn't the infernal,
bloodthirsty fiend in the most cheerful manner touch off the powder
and blow the man into eternity." Then through the thin partition he
heard her faint cry of horror. He remembered how, at the Sergeant's
description of his father, something seemed to go wrong in his brain.
He had a dim remembrance of how, dazed with rage, he had felt his
way out to the next room, and cried, "You defamer of the dead! you
will lie no more!" He had a vivid picture of how in horror she had
fled from him while he dragged out the Sergeant by the throat into
the night, and how he had been torn from him by the united efforts
of Brown and French together. He remembered how, after the funeral
service, when he had grown master of himself again, he had offered
the Sergeant his humble apology before them all. But most vivid of
all was his memory of the look of fear and repulsion in her eyes
when he came near her. And that was the last look he had had of
her. Gladly would he have run away from meeting her again; but
this he could not do, for Jack's sake and for his own. Carefully
he rehearsed the scene, what he would say, and how he would carry
himself; with what rigid self-control and with what easy
indifference he would greet her.

But the meeting was quite other than he had planned. It was at the
mine. One shiny September morning the heavy cars were just starting
down the incline to the mine below, when through the carelessness of
the operator the brake of the great drum slipped, and on being
applied again with reckless force, broke, and the car was off,
bringing destruction to half a dozen men at the bottom of the
shaft. Quick as a flash of light, Kalman sprang to the racing cog
wheels, threw in a heavy coat that happened to be lying near, and
then, as the machinery slowed, thrust in a handspike and checked
the descent of the runaway car. It took less than two seconds to
see, to plan, to execute.

"Great work!" exclaimed a voice behind him.

He turned and saw Sir Robert Menzies, and between him and French,
his daughter Marjorie.

"Glad to see you, Sir Robert," he exclaimed heartily.

"That was splendid!" said his daughter, pale and shaken by what
she had seen.

One keen searching look he thrust in through her eyes, scanning her