r his capture?" inquired Britz,
deliberately conveying to her the incredulity which he felt.

"No, not a trap," she dissented. "I am determined to see justice done."

Britz was too well aware of the average woman's distorted notion of
abstract justice to accept her statement at its face value. Woman by her
very nature is incapable of appreciating or applying impartial justice,
and her incapacity grows in proportion to her immediate interest in the
matter involved. This latter might apply with equal force to the average
man; but man, less governed by emotions, will permit his sense of
justice to prevail when not blinded by personal interest. Abstract
justice will frequently appeal to him and he will act with rational
regard for its proper application. To a woman's eyes, however, justice
invariably shapes itself as her emotions dictate.

Britz, mindful of the fact that with a woman justice and self-interest
are inextricably interwoven, immediately began to search for the
visitor's selfish motive in offering to surrender the murderer, if,
indeed, she meant to surrender the real perpetrator of the crime and not
to shield him behind someone against whom she held a grievance.

"Who is the man you wish to surrender?" he asked with aggravating
calmness.

"George Collins," she replied without hesitancy.

"What evidence have you that he committed the crime?"

"He often threatened to kill Mr. Whitmore. He told me of his intention
innumerable times in the past six weeks."

"Have you any evidence bearing on the act itself--on the killing, I
mean?"

"How can I have?" she replied with a faint smile. "He didn't invite me
to see him do it."

"Then you simply believe he committed the murder because he had
threatened to do so?"

In a carefully planned murder it is always safe to mistrust the obvious.
Beard's outburst against Collins had seemed a genuine eruption of
uncontrollable emotions, at first. But his subsequent conduct had given
his words the aspect of shrewd premeditation. Now she appeared intent on
fastening guilt on Collins. Her very anxiety to do so implied a hidden
motive. It was necessary to be on guard against trickery.

Evidently she sensed Britz's lack of confidence, for she hastened to
say:

"I know why he wanted to kill Mr. Whitmore. It was because Mrs. Collins
was preparing to obtain a divorce in order to marry Mr. Whitmore. She
had confessed her love for Mr. Whitmore and Collins had intercepted a
lette