Clifford gazed tensely at the two men. A slight quivering ran through Bradley’s frame; his cigar fell, bitten through; his small, brilliant eyes were points of vicious flame. Loveman still twirled the end of his girdle, but now a bit more slowly. And thus the three sat for several moments. Then suddenly, without warning of word, seemingly without any preliminary motion, Bradley’s powerful body launched itself from a sitting posture straight at Clifford. Clifford started to rise, and instinctively threw up his arms; but to no avail, for Bradley’s big hands broke past his weak defense and gripped his throat. His chair went toppling over, the table with its cargo of liquors went crashing to the floor, and Clifford was carried resistlessly backward by the force of Bradley’s lunge, until he came up against the great library table. Over this he toppled, his spine against the table’s edge, and Bradley drove his head down upon the wood with a terrific thump. “You’ll stop nothing!” grated Bradley. “You’ve butted into my affairs for the last time!” Clifford tried to struggle free, but he was caught at too hopeless a disadvantage--his spine upon the edge of the table, Bradley’s weight crushing upon him, and that pair of hands clutching his throat. He could move only his arms, and those to no purpose; he could not cry out; he could not breathe. As his chest heaved for lack of air, he read his doom in the deadly fury of Bradley’s face. And he realized, even could he call for help, the futility of such an outcry in this apartment at the top of a lofty building, at this heavily slumbrous hour of four. He had been faintly conscious of hurried fumblings about the desk--of the snap of a lock--of the whine of a sliding drawer. Now, suddenly, as his wide eyes were growing bleared, he saw a dark something appear between his face and the face of Bradley a bare two feet away. And then he saw the something was a short, black pistol, and that the pistol was flush against Bradley’s jaw, and that the pistol was gripped in a soft, round hand that was indubitably Loveman’s. And he heard Loveman’s voice, no longer velvety, snap out:-- “Damn you, Bradley,--that rough stuff don’t go with me! Let loose of him, or, by God, I’ll blow your dam’ face off!” Clifford saw Bradley’s flaming little eyes shift toward the speaker. Then he saw the monk-like figure shift the pistol from jaw to Bradley’s shoulder. “No, I’ll not kill you; I’ll splinter your dam’ bones,” the sharp voice cried with fierce decision. “Get off that man before I count three, or your left arm’ll be the first bone to go. One--two--” The hands left Clifford’s throat, and the heavy figure lifted itself from his body; and, thus freed, Clifford slumped to the floor where he sat limply, pantingly, against the table. Loveman had stepped around the table, and Clifford now saw that he was looking up at Bradley, and he saw that the cherubic, large-eyed face of the lawyer was grim with an awful wrath.