he seemed to hear it, "_Mack_!
_Come up_! _I'm dying_!" He remembered, lazily, that it sounded like
the distant voice of Keenan--but where was Keenan?

Then he seemed to hear the purr and murmur of distant machinery,
followed by a gentle puff of sound and what he hazily dreamed was the
smell of powder smoke. Then he remembered no more.

* * * * * *

Just how or at what juncture he lost consciousness he could never
clearly remember. But his first tangible impression was the knowledge
that his wife was once more pouring brandy down his throat and
imploring him to hurry. Then the sound of muffled blows echoed from
above.

"Quick, Jim, oh, quick, or it will be too late. No, not that way. We
can't go by the front--that's cut off. By the back--this way--I've got
everything open!"

"But what's the noise?" asked Durkin weakly.

"That's the police, with a fireman's axe, breaking in the front door.
But, see, it's not too late! These steps take us up to the back court,
and this iron gate opens on a lane that runs from the supply department
of the hotel there, right through to the open street!"

He shambled after her, white and tottering.

"Quick, Jim, quick!" she reiterated, as she supported him through the
low gate, and kept her arm in his as they passed down the dark lane,
with its homely smells of early cookery and baking bread. Only one
passion possessed them--the blind and persistent and unreasoning
passion for escape, for freedom.

"But MacNutt--where's MacNutt?" demanded Durkin, coming to a stop.

"No--no--quick!" gasped Frank, tugging at his arm.

"I tell you I've got to have it out with that man!" protested the
pitiably dazed but dogged combatant at her side.

"You can't, Jim!"

"But I've got to!"

"You can't--you can't," she moaned, "for he's dead!"

A sudden sickening fear crept through his aching bones, seeming to
leave them fluid, like wax.

"You--you did it?" he asked unsteadily. The face he gazed into looked
aged and worn and pallid in the dim half-light of the breaking morning.
A sudden great pity for her tore at his heart.

"No," she cried fiercely. "No--not me!"

But she was still tugging insanely at his obdurate arm. "I tell you,
Jim, you must hurry, or it will be too late!"

"Thank God!" he gasped, scarcely hearing her pleadings.

They were skirting three early delivery-wagons, waiting to unload at
the supply door of the hotel. A boy passin