been for you there would
never have been any revolt!" he broke in.

"We fought together, then, tooth and nail, and in the end we
surrendered everything but our own liberty--just to start over with
free hands. But it wasn't our mere escape to freedom that maddened
MacNutt; it was the thought that we had beaten him at his own game,
that we had stalked him while he was so busy stalking Penfield. Then
he trapped us, for a moment, and it was sheer good luck that he didn't
kill me that afternoon in his dismantled operating-room, before Doogan
and his men attacked the house. But, as you know, he kept after us,
and he cornered you again, and you would have killed _him_, in turn, if
I hadn't saved you from the sin of it, and the disgrace of it. Then we
thought we were safe, just because the world was big and wide; because
we had made our escape to Europe we thought that we were out of his
circuit, that we were beyond his key-call--but here we are being led
and dragged back to him, through Keenan. But now, just because there
is still an ocean between us, you begin to believe that he has given up
every thought of getting even!"

"Well, isn't it about time he did? We've beaten him twice, at his own
game, and I see no reason why we shouldn't do it again!"

"But how often can we be the glass snake? I mean, how many times can
we afford to leave something behind, and break away, and hope to grow
whole and sound again? And when will MacNutt get us where we can't
break away? I tell you, Jim, you don't know this man as I know him!
You haven't understood yet what a cruelly designing and artful and
vindictive and long-waiting enemy he can be. You haven't seen him
break and crush people, as I once did. It's the memory of that makes
me so afraid of him!"

"There's just the trouble, Frank," cried Durkin. "The man has
terrified and intimidated you, until you think he is the only enemy you
have. I don't deny he isn't dangerous, but so is Pobloff, and so is
Doogan, for that matter, and this man Keenan as well!"

"But they would never crush and smash you, as MacNutt will, if the
chance comes!" she persisted passionately. "You don't see and
understand it, because you are so close to it and so deep in it. It's
like traveling along this little Riviera railway. It's so crooked and
tunneled and close under the mountains that even though we went up and
down it, for a year, from Nice to Nervi, we could never say that we had
seen the