She was careful to lock and bolt her bedroom door that night before retiring, and she left a light burning and sat up in bed waiting and watching expectantly. Two o'clock chimed, and Myra was beginning to nod drowsily, when a faint sound brought her to sudden wakefulness and alertness. Someone was trying the door of her bedroom! She saw the door-handle turn, and she held her breath and listened intently... The handle turned again ... turned back to its original position.... And that was all. Listening with thudding heart, Myra could hear no sound from the other side of her locked and bolted door, and the handle did not move again. Slipping out of bed after a few minutes, she stole noiselessly across the room and, dropping on one knee, put her ear to the keyhole and listened, but heard no sound save the throbbing of her own heart. She could not have explained what she expected, hoped, or dreaded to hear as she crouched there, straining her ears, but it was characteristic of her that suddenly she laughed aloud. "So he was conceited enough to think that I would leave my bedroom door unlocked!" she whispered, as she went back to bed and switched off the light. "What sort of girl does he take me for? I don't know whether to feel insulted or amused... But I'm glad I didn't forget to lock and bolt the door. I wonder..." Myra snuggled her head down in her pillow, but scarcely had she closed her eyes when there was a crash against her bedroom door, a shout, and then a shot, and the sound of more shouting. She sprang up convulsively, her hands pressed to her breast, screamed involuntarily, then, recovering herself, switched on the lights, sprung out of bed, unbolted and unlocked the door, and flung it open--to find Don Carlos de Ruiz, clad in pyjamas and dressing gown, engaged in a desperate struggle with a burly, fully-dressed stranger on the floor of the corridor outside her room. In one swift glance Myra saw that the stranger had a pistol clutched in his right hand, but that Don Carlos had a grip on the man's right wrist and was desperately struggling to prevent his antagonist from using the weapon against him. She screamed again, and even as she did so Don Carlos, by some dexterous twist, got the armed man's elbow across his knee, there was a howl of pain, and the pistol dropped from the fellow's hand. Quick as lightning Don Carlos released his grip, made a dive for the pistol and got it, then leapt to his feet. "Now lie where you are, you swine, or I'll kill you," he snarled breathlessly. "Blast you! You've broken my arm," the man on the floor snarled back at him, writhing in agony. "Blast you! Don't shoot. I surrender... Oh, Gawd! my arm! I wish I'd killed you, damn you!"