The rest of us cleared a circle in the center of the hall; we danced slowly about the perimeter while they in the middle twined arms, turned, confronted each other, flung each other away and circled back to clasp again, dancing. They had become so professional now, that, watching their steps, I forgot for the moment that he was the murderer of old Win and she had been old Win’s wife, in the plot for the Scofield money. Jerry had told me that, when the plot turned to murder of her husband, she had tried to stop it. Had they fallen out? Well, I should see. This was a time not to think, but to watch. Some one switched the lights off. It proved the signal for those who had lights in their hair and on their dresses to gather inside the circle and give their soft, colored glows to Christina and Harry, dancing together. He seized her, tossed her away, caught her again and, before again he tossed her, she altered the figure. As he caught at her, she eluded him and, laughing, she snatched at the sheath on his belt. She had his dagger; and the lights--blood-red, green and amber--glinted on the flashing blade as she bared it, drew back and thrust at him. He caught her wrist, as girls about me gasped; he held and twisted at her hand but she broke his hold and darted away from him. He stood a moment, staring; then he grinned at her who, off at the edge of the circle, again was dancing as if that thrust at him, his snatch just in time, his twist and her breakaway all were part of the figure. But they weren’t. He knew; I knew; many others knew. There, in that flash of shining steel, she had stabbed at him to kill him. Why? Jerry’s words to me gave at least a clue. He was her man, who had been a “gun” but who had become a “gorilla”; he had shot Win Scofield in her sight, slaughtered him before her. She had tried to stop that killing; and his murder of the old man in his house had been Harry Vine’s answer. Also he had served notice for her to come back to him; so she had done so,--to kill him. This was what Jerry meant I should see; this was the vengeance of Shirley. Not vengeance alone; also an attempt at self-protection. She knew, going back to a “gorilla”, that sooner or later he would kill her. Perhaps she expected death from him only a little later that night. So she had struck there before them all and, failing, made her life surely forfeit. Now, without doubt, Keeban--Harry Vine--would kill her. Not there, surrounded by that circle, as she would have slain him, had her thrust gone home. A girl kills a man that way; but not a man his woman. This rapiered Raleigh knew that. He made no motion to attack her; he merely watched her, and he grinned while she danced and tried to play it was all pretense.