do?" he demanded half angrily. "Do
you picture what your denunciation would do for me? Do you think that
I can let you make it?"

His face was so near hers that she could see it clearly in the pallid
light. He could see hers and that it was lifted fearlessly.

"How will you stop me?" she asked quietly.

"I will finish Jim Galloway out of hand," he told her savagely. "It
will no longer be the representative of the law against the lawbreaker;
it will just be Norton and Galloway, both men! I will accomplish the
one other matter I have planned. Both will require not over three or
four days. During that time . . . I tell you, Virginia, I have grown
into a free man, a man who does what he wants to do, who takes what he
wants to take, who is not bound by flimsy shackles of other men's
codes. During those three or four days I shall see that you do no
talking!"

Once more, her voice quickened, she asked:

"How will you stop me?"

"We have come to a deadlock; argument does no good. Either I must
yield to you or you to me. There is too much at stake to allow of a
man being squeamish. I don't care much for the job, but by high Heaven
I am of no mind to watch life run by through the bars of a
penitentiary. After all action becomes simplified when a crisis comes;
doesn't it? There is just one answer, just one way out. You will come
with me, now. I will put you where you will have no opportunity to do
any talking for the few days in which I shall finish what I have to
do." His hand on Persis's rein drew the two horses still closer
together. "Give me your promise, Virginia; or come with me!"

Her quick spurt of anger rose, flared, and dwindled away like a little
flame extinguished by a splash of rain; the tears were stinging her
eyes almost before the last word. For she felt that here was no
Roderick Norton speaking, but rather a bit of bone pressing upon the
delicate machinery which is a man's brain.

"Where would you take me?" she asked faintly.

"To the King's Palace," he answered bitterly. "Where we had one
perfect, happy day, Virginia; where, I had hoped, we would have other
perfect days. Oh, girl, can't you see," and his voice went thrilling
through her, "can't you see what I have hoped, what I have
dreamed. . . ."

"You might still hope," she told him steadily. "You might still dream."

"I will!" His eyes shone at her, his erect form outlined against the
black of the earth and the gleam of t