as they had stood only a few brief hours
ago; and as she looked around her now she thought of this.

"So," she said. "We're back just where we started from!" The grim humor of
it came over her. Ten minutes ago she had thought her husband dead--done
for, out of the way. Now he stood before her in all his virility, in all
his cruelty; and behind him was the one man in the world that she loved.

"Not quite," said Gilbert. He stepped forward a pace or two. He saw that
Lucia was alarmed. "Come," he begged of her. "Don't be afraid." Oh, the
balm of those few words!

But she was not wholly herself yet. "What are you going to do?" she asked,
and came nearer Gilbert. How strong and determined he looked in the dim
light!

"I'm going to have this thing out," he said. "You can never go back to him
now." There was finality in his voice.

"No, I never can," Lucia agreed. And there was finality in her voice, too.
It was as if Destiny had come into this house, and an unheard voice told
them what to do.

"You'll trust me to protect you--until--" Gilbert went on.

She looked at him pleadingly. "Oh, take me with you, Gil!" She threw her
arms out. She had nothing to fear now, his strength beside her. She told
him in one glorious gesture that she was his forever--that she had
surrendered herself, body and soul, to him. Gilbert looked at her. Slowly,
he realized that this woman, this creature of his dreams cared for him, and
him alone; and the world might sweep by, the stars and moon might crash to
earth, and they would neither know nor care. Fate had brought her to him.
Nothing else mattered now. What was Morgan Pell? In life he was as impotent
as when he lay half concealed beneath the table near which he now stood.
They would not consider him, save as the foolish laws of man made it
necessary for them to consider him.

Gilbert turned to Pell. "You heard--she's mine now. And any course you may
take to stop her--" he warned. It was useless to say more. The manner in
which young Jones spoke told the whole story of his feelings.

Yet Pell tried to appear nonchalant and casual. "You haven't another drink
around, have you?" he inquired. He still held his handkerchief to his
wounded forehead. "That was a rather nasty one I got, you know."

Gilbert, though he loathed him as a serpent, remembered that he was this
creature's host, and stepped over to the fireplace where there was a flask
with a little tequila still left. He offered Pell th