Maria's fingers tore at his legs as she sought to clutch him, and his left heel ground into her face, forcing her back in the seat. The roadster smashed through the wooden rail, teetered for just an instant on the edge of the cliff, then plunged forward. The noise of nearly two tons of metal smashing on rock a hundred feet below, shocked the night. And Gruin dropped into the road and ran to the edge. He looked down. Flame was rising from the wreck far below. He saw a black cascade in the path of the flame. Maria's hair. He was whimpering a little as he moved, without being conscious of it. There was a ledge ten feet down, with a thick bush growing from it. He lowered himself to that, clung to it, and began shouting for help.... * * * * * It all went as he had thought it would. The papers got just the right angle. A Gruin, scion of one of the city's best-known, if not richest, families, had been out with some girl named Maria José. He had parked at the edge of the Palisades. Probably there'd been a little drinking. When leaving, he had carelessly shifted the gear lever forward into second instead of forward into reverse. The car had plunged over the cliff carrying both of them, but he had been thrown out and had caught a bush which saved his life. The girl had gone on down--to death. There was unfavorable publicity; there were infuriated lectures from his grandfather; there was talk of prosecution for criminal carelessness. And that was all. With one clever stroke Gruin had gotten rid of a danger that had grown to intolerable proportions in his life. Decorously he went to the funeral in which a girl's shattered body was lowered into the ground. And afterward, Maria's father came up to him. Gruin looked hastily around. There was no one near, and he was a little afraid of the somber fire in the man's deep-set black eyes. He had aged twenty years. He looked like a gargoyle with an iron-gray beard and white hair. "You killed Maria," he said, with the words coming slowly and painfully. "I know." Gruin's face took on a contrite and sympathetic expression. "A terrible accident----" "That is not what I mean," said Maria's father. "It was not accident. _I know._ You killed my girl on purpose. _You murdered her!_" "No, no! I swear----" Gruin stopped at the look in his eyes. And José went on, slowly, painfully, with every word ringing in Gruin's brain. "I bring her curse on your head. You killed her to be free from her. But you shall not be free. She will be with you always, beside you, walking when you walk, stopping when you stop. Always, always beside you...." Gruin got away from there, and also, he was sure, away from all that had threatened him.