He crawled hastily across the bed and swung round and waited with his back against a chiffonier in the corner, sternly resolved that not without a struggle would he be shot and his body left lying crumpled in a corner with no one to tell the tale. He had the advantage of the knowledge of the enemy's approach, and he raised the gun and covered the door in readiness. A flash clipped the dark for an instant. Then a hand groped along the wall seeking the switch. Archie could hear its soft rasping over the wall. As the switch snapped the room flooded with light. The bewildering glare leaping out of the darkness held the man in the doorway and he raised his arm and passed his hand over his eyes to shield them from the light. Between the front windows stood a long mirror swung in a movable frame, and as he measured distances and calculated chances Archie found himself staring at the reflection of a tall man with a cap pulled low over his head and with the collar of a yellowish raincoat turned up about his face. The eyes of the two met, the gaze of each gripping and holding that of the other. The burglar's shoulders drooped as he gaped at the mirrored apparition. Then swiftly he jerked a pistol from his pocket and fired point blank into the mirror. The report crashed horribly in the room, followed by the tinkle of fragments of glass. Archie aimed at the doorway, but his shot seemed only to hasten the man's flight. A rug slipped and the fugitive fell with a frightened yell that rang eerily through the house. In the hall Archie turned on all the lights and gaining the landing fired at the retreating figure as it plunged toward the front door. At the crack of the gun the fugitive stopped short, clapped his hand to his shoulder and groaned, then sprang through the front door and Bennett heard immediately the quick patter of his feet on the walk. The lock bore no evidence of having been forced. It was a curious business and Archie closed the door, placed a heavy chair against it, and feeling a little giddy he threw himself down on a davenport in the living-room. He began thinking very hard. He had shot a man and for all he knew the victim might be lying dead somewhere on the premises. To be sure the shooting of an armed housebreaker was justifiable, but the thought of coroner's inquests and dallyings with the police filled him with horror. The newspapers would seize upon the case with avidity, and his friends would never cease twitting him about his valor in firing a bullet into the back of a fleeing burglar.