t his
moment had come.

Without a spoken word he caught his revolver up from his coat pocket.
Then he thrust it, craftily, into the other man's hand.

The insane fingers closed on the handle of it, the glaring and
expressionless eye peered along the steadying barrel. MacNutt held his
breath, and waited. It must be soon, he knew, before the moment of
madness had burnt itself out.

The woman under the white light of the electrolier drew back from
Keenan, with her eyes still on his face, so that her head and shoulders
stood out, a target of black against the white fore-ground. Then she
drew one hand quickly across her forehead, and, wheeling slowly, let
her puzzled glance sweep the entire circle of the room, until once more
her eyes rested upon the expectant eyes of Keenan.

Durkin, through all his rage, shut his teeth on a sudden sob. It was
all over. It was the end.

A change suddenly swept across the woman's face, a light of exaltation
leaped into her dilated pupils, and her hand went up to her heart.

Was it some small sound or movement that she had heard, or was it some
minute vibration of floor that she had felt?

"_Jim, it's you_!" she shrilled out suddenly, into the heavy silence,
in a tense and high soprano, with a voice not like her own.

"_Jim, where are you_?" she called passionately, as she beat Keenan
impotently back with her naked hands. "Help me, quick! Can't you see
I need you? Can't you see this is _killing me_?"

Keenan fell back before her, aghast.

"You fool, you weak fool!" she shrieked at him madly. "Do you think I
meant that? Do you dream I could respect or care for an animal like
you! Do you imagine I would endure the touch of your hands, if it
wasn't to save me till this? Do you dream----?"

She stopped suddenly, for with one sweep of his advancing arm Durkin
tore the heavy portiere from its curtain-rings, and he stood before
them, in the flat white light of the electrics.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE LAST DITCH

Durkin advanced into the room quickly, the revolver in his right hand.
It was a short-barreled bull-dog gun of heavy caliber, ugly and
menacing as it swung from his out-thrust wrist, held low, with the
right elbow pressed close in to his side. In the doorway stood
MacNutt. His eyes were staring, his bullock head thrown back,
bewildered at the sudden change that one sweep of an arm had brought to
the scene.

As Durkin edged craftily round, with his back to the