return she has given me a solemn promise to have nothing
whatever more to do with you."

"Oh! did she?" cried Bela, whose savage temper, held in check for
awhile, had at last risen to its habitual stage of unbridled fury. All
the hot blood had rushed to his head, making his face crimson and his
eye glowing and unsteady, and his hand shook visibly as he leaned
against the table so that the mugs and bottles rattled, as did the key
upon the metal tray. He, too, felt that hideous red mist enveloping him
and blurring his sight. He hated Andor with all his might, and would
have strangled him if he had felt that he had the physical power to do
it as well as the moral strength. His voice came hoarse and hissing
through his throat as he murmured through tightly clenched teeth:

"She did, did she? And you made her give you that promise which is not
going to bind her, let me tell you that. But let me also tell you in
the meanwhile, my fine gentleman from America, that your d----d
interference will do no good to your former sweetheart, who is already
as good as my wife--and will be my wife to-morrow. Klara Goldstein is my
friend, let me tell you that, and . . ."

He paused a moment . . . something had arrested the words in his throat.
As so often occurs in the mysterious workings of Fate, a small,
apparently wholly insignificant event suddenly caused the full tide of
his destiny to turn--and not only of his own destiny but that of many
others!

An event--a tiny fact--trivial enough for the moment: the touch of his
hand against the key upon the brass tray.

Mechanically he picked up the key: his mind was not yet working quite
clearly, but the shifty glance of his one eye rested upon the key, and
contemplated it for awhile.

"Well!" he murmured vaguely at last, "how strange!"

"What is strange?" queried the other--not understanding.

"That this key should, so to speak, fall like this into my hand."

"That isn't strange at all," said Andor, with a shrug of the shoulders,
for now he thought that Bela was drunk, so curious was the look in his
eye, "considering that I put that key there myself half an hour ago--it
is the key of the back door of this house."

"I know it is," rejoined Bela slowly, "I have had it in my possession
before now . . . when Ignacz Goldstein has been away from home, and it
was not thought prudent for me to enter this house by the front door
. . . late at night--you understand."

Then, as Andor once m