low, whispering into the ear which could not hear her,
and then she raised her eyes, still holding his head against her
shoulder, to see the little circle of stunned faces, and hear Fairley's
voice announcing in broken syllables, but very quietly, "I
was--attempting suicide--and he grappled with me."

She knew even while she awaited the physicians that no spark of life
remained and that this was the last time her arms would ever be closed
around him in life or death, and as she stood there, for the time upheld
by a strength beyond her ordinary physical powers, strange
inconsequential little fragments of talk, things he had said to her and
she to him, were repeating themselves in her memory, and the exact
inflections of his voice were renewing themselves in her ears.

Then as two physicians hurried in, closely heeled by two policemen, she
surrendered her beloved burden to stronger hands, and, as she moved back
with still no trace of tears in her wide eyes, the whole picture
darkened and out of muscle and nerve and brain-cell went every vestige
of autonomy and consciousness. They caught her as she fell and laid her
on a broad upholstered window seat. When her eyes next opened hot pains
were scorching her temples and her gaze turned instinctively toward the
desk. It was empty of its human burden, and, save for the clerk who had
that morning received her in the outer room and a physician, the private
office was empty, too.

Following the hungry question of her mismated eyes, the doctor gravely
nodded his head.

"It was instantaneous and painless," he said. Then he added, "We have
sent for your brother. He was not in his office, but--"

With the startling ferocity of an aroused tigress, Mary strove to rise
and make her way to the door, but the physician restrained her. "Not
yet," he gently commanded. "You are hardly ready for exertion;" and even
before he had finished speaking her knees gave way and she sank back.

"My brother!" she whispered, and her eyes burned feverishly. "It will
kill me to see him. I shall try to murder him--I--"

She was interrupted by the noiseless opening of the door, and Hamilton
Burton stood across the threshold of the enemy whose life he had that
day broken.

He was no longer the Napoleonic Burton. For the instant he was stunned
and pale. It was breaking on him that the price of conquest may be
excessive. Even before this staggering news had reached him he had seen
the headlines of the e