“If I could have dispensed with your services, or if I had had the sense to guess the simple solution of this cursed puzzle, I could have done everything without embarrassing you in the slightest; but now it has come to this--I have got to silence you.” He put forward the proposition with the utmost coolness, and Kathleen felt her senses reel at all the words implied. “I can silence you by killing you,” he said simply, “or by marrying you. If I could think of some effective plan by which I might be sure of your absolute obliteration for two days, I would gladly adopt it; but you are a human woman, and that is too much to expect. Now, of the alternatives, which do you prefer?” She shrank back against the shuttered window, her eyes on the man. “You are doubtless thinking of the chauffeur,” he said smoothly, “but you may leave him out of the reckoning. Had your ears been sharp, you would have heard the car going back half an hour ago--he is awaiting our return half a mile away. If I return alone he will doubtlessly be surprised, but he will know nothing. Do you not see a picture of him driving me away, and me, at his side turning round and waving a smiling farewell to an imaginary woman who is invisible to the chauffeur? Picture his uneasiness vanishing with this touch. Two days afterwards he would be on the sea with me, ignorant of the murder, and curious things happen at sea. Come, Kathleen, is it to be marriage----?” “Death!” she cried hoarsely, then, as his swift hand caught her by the throat, she screamed. His face looked down into hers, no muscle of it moved. Fixed, rigid, and full of his dreadful purpose, she saw the pupils of his pitiless eyes contract. Then of a sudden he released hold of her, and she fell back against the wall. She heard his quick breathing, and closing her eyes, waited. Then slowly she looked up. She saw a revolver in his hand, and in a numb kind of way she realized that it was not pointed at her. “Hands up!” She heard Spedding’s harsh shout. “Hands up, both of you!” Then she heard an insolent laugh. There were only two men in the world who would laugh like that in the very face of death, and they were both there, standing in the doorway, Angel with his motor goggles about his neck and Jimmy slowly peeling his gloves. Then she looked at Spedding. The hand that held the revolver did not tremble, he was as self-possessed as he had been a few minutes before. “If either of you move I’ll shoot the girl, by God!” said Spedding through his teeth. They stood in the doorway, and Jimmy spoke. He did not raise his voice, but she heard the slumbering passion vibrating through his quiet sentences.