t without her volition, to her knees.

"Money? Is it money you want?" was her desperate greeting. "If so,
here's my purse and here are my rings and watch. Take them and go."

But the stolid wretch did not even stretch out his hands. His eyes went
beyond her, and the mingled anxiety and resolve which he displayed would
have cowed a stouter heart than that of this poor woman.

"Keep de trash," he growled. "I want de company's money. You 've got
it--two thousand dollars. Show me where it is, that's all, and I won't
trouble you long after I close on it."

"But it's not in the house," she cried. "I swear it is not in the house.
Do you think Mr. Chivers would leave me here alone with two thousand
dollars to guard?"

But the negro, swearing that she lied, leaped into the room, and tearing
open the cupboard above her husband's desk, seized the bag from the
corner where they had put it.

"He brought it in this," he muttered, and tried to force the bag open,
but finding this impossible he took out a heavy knife and cut a big
hole in its side. Instantly there fell out the pile of old receipts with
which they had stuffed it, and seeing these he stamped with rage, and
flinging them in one great handful at her rushed to the drawers below,
emptied them, and, finding nothing, attacked the bookcase.

"The money is somewhere here. You can't fool me," he yelled. "I saw
the spot your eyes lit on when I first came into the room. Is it
behind these books?" he growled, pulling them out and throwing them
helter-skelter over the floor. "Women is smart in the hiding business.
Is it behind these books, I say?"

They had been, or rather had been placed between the books, but she
had taken them away, as we know, and he soon began to realise that his
search was bringing him nothing, for leaving the bookcase he gave the
books one kick, and seizing her by the arm, shook her with a murderous
glare on his strange and distorted features.

"Where's the money?" he hissed. "Tell me, or you are a goner."

He raised his heavy fist. She crouched and all seemed over, when, with
a rush and cry, a figure dashed between them and he fell, struck down by
the very stick she had so long been expecting to see fall upon her own
head. The man who had been her terror for hours had at the moment of
need acted as her protector.

* * * * *

She must have fainted, but if so, her unconsciousness was but momentary,
for when she again recognized her surroundings sh