As Allie Briskow passed through the lobby with her head erect and her fists clenched, she heard the sound of a great shouting outside and she believed it was directed at her. She fled into her room and flung herself upon her bed, sobbing hoarsely. Mrs. Ring was waiting on the veranda for Gus Briskow when he returned to the hotel about dark. He had learned to dread the sight of her on that veranda, for it was her favorite resigning place--what Gus called her "quitting spot," and it was evident to-night that she was in a quitting mood, a mood more hysterical than ever before. It was some time before he could get at the facts, and even then he could not fully appreciate the enormity of the disgrace that had overwhelmed Allie's instructress. "She chucked the dancin' teacher out of a winder?" he repeated, blankly. "What for?" "Goodness knows, Mr. Briskow! Something he said, or did--I couldn't make out precisely. I found her in a dreadful state, and I tried to comfort her, I did really, but--oh! If you could have _heard_ her! Where she learned such language I don't know. My ears _burn_! But that isn't the worst; you should hear what--" "He must of said something pretty low down." Briskow spoke quietly; his bright blue eyes were hard. "I reckon she'll tell me." "You don't understand," chattered the woman. "She flung the man bodily out of the window and into a bed of thorns. It nearly killed him; he was painfully lacerated and bruised and--Right in the middle of a golf game! It did something dreadful--I don't know what--just as the world's champion caught the ball, or something." "If he's crippled I'll get him that much easier," said Briskow, and at the purposeful expression upon his weather-beaten face Mrs. Ring uttered a faint bleat of terror. She pawed at him as he undertook to pass her. "Oh, my heavens! What are you going to do?" "Depends on what he said to Allie." The woman wrung her hands. "What people! What--_savages_! You're--going to shoot him, I suppose, just because--" "Yes'm!" the father nodded. "You got it right, motif an' all. 'Just because'!" "You _can't_. I sha'n't permit it. I--I'll call the police." "Don't do that, ma'am. I've stood a lot from you, in one way or another." "But it's _murder_! You--you can't mean it." Moans issued from the speaker. "What _ever_ possessed me to accept this position? It's unendurable, and I'll be involved--" "I've saw your last raise, Miz' Ring." "Do you think I'd stay, after this? It's bad enough to be made ridiculous--the whole hotel is in laughter; laughter at me, I dare say, as much as at her. Imagine! Hurling a full-grown man from a window--" "I don't hear nobody laughing." Briskow swung his head slowly from side to side. "But to contemplate murder--"