to Mary Burton, standing anxiously in the
conference-room, all the words were intelligible.

Fairley leaned across the table, and for an instant left the weapon
unguarded. With a movement of cat-like swiftness Edwardes seized it, but
a wild snarl of rage burst from the other's lips and his fingers closed
vise-like over Jefferson's hand.

"No--by God--you don't!" he screamed.

Mary Burton threw open the door, and saw the two figures bent across
the table with four hands desperately gripped while between them glinted
the blued metal of the pistol, which the frustrated Fairley was striving
to turn upon his own breast and Edwardes struggled to divert.

Before she could give outcry or reach them, there came an out-spitting
of fire from the ugly muzzle and a report which the confined space
magnified to a sullen roar. Edwardes lurched suddenly forward and
remained motionless with his face down and his arms outspread upon the
desk, while a tiny red puddle spread on the mahogany.

Fairley had leaped back and cowered, suddenly sobered, against the wall
as the outer door opened and figures poured into the room.

CHAPTER XXIV

After the low scream that came moaningly up from her breast, which was
drowned in the echoes of the report, Mary Burton made no outcry. She no
longer leaned limp and nerveless against the support of the doorway.
Something had seemed to snap the cords of her paralysis and out of her
blanched face her eyes stared wide and piteous. As the older banker
staggered back she was quick to reach the motionless figure and to lift
its head to her breast. Yet she did not really have to look, something
fateful and unquestionable told her from the first instant that no human
aid could avail--and that he would not speak again or move a muscle in
life. His employees found her supporting the weight of his shoulders
against her bosom and seeking to staunch with her handkerchief the flow
of blood from the temple.

In one trivial respect the cruelties of her day of cumulative tragedy
were abated. The steel-nosed bullet, even at that close range, had cut
clean and spared his face, save for the trickle of red and the smirch of
powder burn--such defacement as she could not have endured. The eyes,
not yet glazed, gazed out with their accustomed resolute calm and the
lips were firm, a little grim with the purpose of thwarting another's
death, but it was still, though lifeless, a face without surrender.

The girl bent