me. There was not a single chance to close with him. I was considering
ignominious surrender when Miss Wallace saved my face.

"Can he give you what he hasn't got?" she cried out, her natural courage
and her contempt struggling with her fear for me.

"So he hasn't it, eh?" There was a silence before he went on: "But it is
in this room somewhere. You have it or he has it. Now, I wonder which?"
He spoke softly, as if to himself, without the least trace of
nervousness or passion. "Yes, that's the riddle. Which of you?"

His eyes released me long enough to shoot a questioning glance at her,
for from my face he could read nothing.

"If you have it, Evie, my cousin, you will perhaps desire to turn it
over to me for safe keeping. It will be better, I think."

"For you or for me?"

He laughed noiselessly, with the manner peculiar to him of having some
private source of amusement within.

"Would you shoot me if I didn't agree with you?" she continued.

"My dear cousin," he reproved. From his air one might have judged him a
pained and loving father.

"Then what will you do?"

"Yes, I really think it will be better," he murmured with his strange
smile.

"And I ask again, better for whom?"

"For Mr. Sedgwick, my dear," he cut back.

She was plainly taken aback.

"But--since he hasn't the paper----"

"We'll assume he has it. At least he knows where it is."

His manner dismissed her definitely from the business in hand. "I must
apologize for my brusqueness, Mr. Sedgwick, but I'm sure you'll
understand that with a busy man time is money. Believe me, it is with
great regret I am forced to cut short so promising a career. You're a
man after my own heart. I see quite unusual qualities in you that I
would have found pleasure in cultivating. But I mustn't let my selfish
regret interfere with what is for the good of the greatest number. At
best it's an unsatisfactory world. You're well rid of it. Any last
messages, by the way?"

He purred out his atrocious mockery as a great cat gifted with speech
might have done while playing with the mouse it meant to destroy.

"I'd like to make it clear to you what a villain you are--but I despair
of finding words to do justice to the subject. As for your threat, it
is absurd. You'd hang, to a certainty, on the testimony of Miss
Wallace."

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

"Life is full of risks. We all have to take them, and for my part it
lends a zest. Unfortunately, if you t