ran to his father.

"I'm all right," declared the quack. "Only the shoulder. Just winged.
Get me a drink from that decanter."

His son obeyed. With swift, careful hands he got the coat off the
bulky-muscled arm, and saw, with a heart-lifting relief, that the bullet
had hardly more than grazed the flesh. Meantime the girl had crawled,
still sobbing, to a chair.

"Did I kill him?" she asked, covering her eyes against what she might
see.

"No," said Hal.

"Listen," commanded Dr. Surtaine. "Some one's coming. Keep quiet." He
walked steadily to the door and called out, "It's nothing. Just
experimenting with a new pistol. Go back to your bed."

"Who was it?" asked Hal.

"The housekeeper. There's just one thing to do for the sake of all of
us. This has _got_ to be hushed up. I'm going out to telephone. Don't
let her get away, Hal."

"Get away! Oh, my God!" breathed the girl.

Hal walked over to her, his heart wrung with pity.

"Why did you come here to kill my father, Milly?" he asked.

She stooped to pick up the "Happy Lady" clipping from the floor.

"That's why," she said.

"Good God!" said Hal. "Have you been taking that--those pills?"

"Taking 'em? Yes, and believing in 'em, till I found out it was all
damned lies. And your fine and noble and honest 'Clarion' advertises the
lies just as your fine and noble and honest father makes the pills.
They're no good. Do you get that? And when I came here and told your
father he'd got to help me out of my trouble, what do you think he told
me? That I'd lost my job at the factory!"

"Who is the man, Milly?"

"What business is that of yours?"

"I'll go after him and see that he marries you if it takes--"

"Oh, he'd be only too glad to marry me if he could. He can't. Poor Max
has got a wife somewhere--"

"Max? It's Veltman!" cried Hal. "The dirty scoundrel."

"Oh, don't blame Max," said the girl wearily. "It isn't his fault. After
you threw me down"--Hal winced--"I started to run wild. It's the
Hardscrabbler in me. I took to drinking and running around, and Max
pulled me out of it, and I went to live with him. I didn't care. Nothing
mattered, anyway. And I wasn't afraid of anything like this happening,
because I thought the pills made it all safe."

Here Dr. Surtaine reappeared. "I've got a detective coming that I can
trust."

"A detective?" cried Hal. "Oh, Dad--"

"You keep out of this," retorted his father, in a tone such as his son
had never heard from