n the
sleeve caught on her watch, she jerked that off, too. She stood for a
moment with it in her hand, her face twisted with shame and anger. Then
recklessly and furiously she flung it through the open window.

In the stillness of the street far below she heard it strike and
rebound.

"That for him!" she muttered.

Almost immediately she wanted it again. He had given it to her. It was
all she had left now, and in a curious way it had, through long wearing,
come to mean Graham to her. She leaned out of the window. She thought
she saw it gleaming in the gutter, and already, attracted by the crash,
a man was crossing the street to where it lay.

"You let that alone," she called down desperately. The figure was
already stooping over it. Entirely reckless now, she ran, bare-armed and
bare-bosomed, down the stairs and out into the street. She had thought
to see its finder escaping, but he was still standing where he had
picked it up.

"It's mine," she began. "I dropped it out of the window. I--"

"You threw it out of the window. I saw you."

It was Rudolph.

"You--" He snarled, and stood with menacing eyes fixed on her bare neck.

"Rudolph!"

"Get into the house," he said roughly. "You're half-naked."

"Give me my watch."

"I'll give it to you, all right. What's left of it. When we get in."

He followed her into the hail, but when she turned there and held out
her hand, he only snarled again.

"We'll talk up-stairs."

"I can't take you up. The landlady don't allow it."

"She don't, eh? You had that Spencer skunk up there."

His face frightened her, and she lied vehemently.

"That's not so, and you know it, Rudolph Klein. He came inside, just
like this, and we stood and talked. Then he went away. He wasn't inside
ten minutes." Her voice rose hysterically, but Rudolph caught her by the
arm, and pushing her ahead of him, forced her up the stairs.

"We're going to have this out," he muttered, viciously.

Half way up she stopped.

"You're hurting my arm."

"You be glad I'm not breaking it for you."

He climbed in a mounting fury. He almost threw her into her room, and
closing the door, he turned the key in it. His face reminded her of
her father's the night he had beaten her, and her instinct of
self-preservation made her put the little table between them.

"You lay a hand on me," she panted, "and I'll yell out the window. The
police would be glad enough to have something on you, Rudolph Klein, and