f struggling, subsided. The psychiatrist had taken a leather case from
his pocket and was selecting a hypodermic needle.

Then Myra Hampton leaped to her feet, her face working hideously.

"No! Stop! Stop!" she cried.

Everybody looked at her in surprise, Colonel Hampton no less than the
others. Stephen Hampton called out her name sharply.

"No! You shan't do this to me! You shan't! You're torturing me! you are
all devils!" she screamed. "Devils! _Devils!_"

"Myra!" her husband barked, stepping forward.

With a twist, she eluded him, dashing around the desk and pulling open a
drawer.

For an instant, she fumbled inside it, and when she brought her hand up,
she had Colonel Hampton's .45 automatic in it. She drew back the slide
and released it, loading the chamber.

Doctor Vehrner, the hypodermic in his hand, turned. Stephen Hampton
sprang at her, dropping his drink. And Albert, the prognathous
attendant, released Colonel Hampton and leaped at the woman with the
pistol, with the unthinking promptness of a dog whose master is in
danger.

Stephen Hampton was the closest to her; she shot him first, point-blank
in the chest. The heavy bullet knocked him backward against a small
table; he and it fell over together. While he was falling, the woman
turned, dipped the muzzle of her pistol slightly and fired again; Doctor
Vehrner's leg gave way under him and he went down, the hypodermic flying
from his hand and landing at Colonel Hampton's feet. At the same time,
the attendant, Albert, was almost upon her. Quickly, she reversed the
heavy Colt, pressed the muzzle against her heart, and fired a third
shot.

T. Barnwell Powell had let the briefcase slip to the floor; he was
staring, slack-jawed, at the tableau of violence which had been enacted
before him. The attendant, having reached Myra, was looking down at her
stupidly. Then he stooped, and straightened.

"She's dead!" he said, unbelievingly.

Colonel Hampton rose, putting his heel on the hypodermic and crushing
it.

"Of course she's dead!" he barked. "You have any first-aid training?
Then look after these other people. Doctor Vehrner first; the other
man's unconscious; he'll wait."

"No; look after the other man first," Doctor Vehrner said.

Albert gaped back and forth between them.

"Goddammit, you heard me!" Colonel Hampton roared. It was Slaughterhouse
Hampton, whose service-ribbons started with the Indian campaigns,
speaking; an officer who never for an