asted.

"I am, dear Mr. Meredith,

"Yours very sincerely,

"REMINGTON KARA."

Kara folded the letter and inserted it in its envelope. He rang a bell
on his table and the girl who had so filled T. X. with a sense of awe
came from an adjoining room.

"You will see that this is delivered, Miss Holland."

She inclined her head and stood waiting. Kara rose from his desk and
began to pace the room.

"Do you know T. X. Meredith?" he asked suddenly.

"I have heard of him," said the girl.

"A man with a singular mind," said Kara; "a man against whom my
favourite weapon would fail."

She looked at him with interest in her eyes.

"What is your favourite weapon, Mr. Kara?" she asked.

"Fear," he said.

If he expected her to give him any encouragement to proceed he was
disappointed. Probably he required no such encouragement, for in the
presence of his social inferiors he was somewhat monopolizing.

"Cut a man's flesh and it heals," he said. "Whip a man and the memory
of it passes, frighten him, fill him with a sense of foreboding and
apprehension and let him believe that something dreadful is going to
happen either to himself or to someone he loves--better the latter--and
you will hurt him beyond forgetfulness. Fear is a tyrant and a despot,
more terrible than the rack, more potent than the stake. Fear
is many-eyed and sees horrors where normal vision only sees the
ridiculous."

"Is that your creed?" she asked quietly.

"Part of it, Miss Holland," he smiled.

She played idly with the letter she held in her hand, balancing it on
the edge of the desk, her eyes downcast.

"What would justify the use of such an awful weapon?" she asked.

"It is amply justified to secure an end," he said blandly. "For
example--I want something--I cannot obtain that something through the
ordinary channel or by the employment of ordinary means. It is essential
to me, to my happiness, to my comfort, or my amour-propre, that that
something shall be possessed by me. If I can buy it, well and good. If
I can buy those who can use their influence to secure this thing for me,
so much the better. If I can obtain it by any merit I possess, I utilize
that merit, providing always, that I can secure my object in the time,
otherwise--"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I see," she said, nodding her head quickly. "I suppose that is how
blackmailers feel."

He frowned.

"That is a word I never use, nor do I like to hear it empl