he had been keeping she was still very beautiful,
and her anger served to heighten that physical charm which was the
keynote of her power over men.

"_Oh_!" she panted; "so _that_ was what you were willing to pay for!
You want a bill of health so you can go back to that little hussy in
Cripple Creek! Listen to me, Bert Weyburn: you've broken the last
thread. I could kill you if you couldn't serve my turn better alive
than dead! _I want that money_. If you don't bring it here to me by
ten o'clock, the Denver police are going to find out that you, the
wealthy third partner in the Little Clean-Up, are the man they
photographed nearly a year ago, the man whose thumb-print they took,
the man who is wanted as an escaped convict who has broken his
parole--No, don't speak; let me finish. For the money you are going to
bring me, I'll keep still--to the police. But for the slap you've just
given me. . . . Did you ever read that line of Congreve's about a
woman scorned? You've had your last little love-scene with Polly
Everton!"

I'll tell it all. This time the murder demon proved too strong for me.
It was a sheer madman who sprang at her out of the depths of the
arm-chair and bent her back over the little oak writing-table with his
hands at her throat. She was not womanly enough to scream; instead,
she fought silently and with the strength and cunning of mortal fear.
Even as my fingers clutched at her for the strangling hold she twisted
herself free and put the breadth of the table between us; then I found
myself looking into the muzzle of a small silver-mounted revolver.

"You fool!" she gasped. "Do you think I would take any chances with
you? If you should kill me, the axe would fall and find your neck,
just the same! I put it in a letter to the chief of police. Get me
that money before ten o'clock if you want me to stop the letter!"

I was beaten, this time not by fear of her or what she could do, but by
the crushing loss I had suffered in those few mad moments. I had done
the thing that no man may do and still claim that he has a single drop
of gentle blood in his veins; I had laid my hands in violence upon a
woman, and with murder in my heart.

Convinced now that there was no deeper depth of degradation to which I
could sink, I set about the task she had given me, laboring through it
like a man in a dream. To gather up such a huge sum of money after
banking hours was well nigh impossible; but I compassed