Harry Sanderson's eyes had not left Hugh's face; he was thinking swiftly. The bolt from the blue had been so recent that this sudden apparition seemed a natural concomitant of the situation. Only the problem was no longer imminent; it was upon him. Jessica was not for him--he had accepted that. Though the clock might not turn backward, this man must stand between them. Yet his presence now in the predicament was intolerable. This drunken, criminal maligner had it in his power to precipitate the climax for her in a coarse and brutal _exposé_. Hugh had no idea of the true tangle, else he had not been seen in the town. But if not to-night, then to-morrow! Harry's heart turned cold within him. If he could eliminate Hugh from the problem till he could see his way! "Well," said Hugh with a sneer, "what have you got to say?" Harry rose slowly and pushed the door shut. "When we last met," he said, "what you most wanted was to leave the country." "I changed my mind," retorted Hugh. "I've got a right to do that, I suppose. I've come back now to get what is mine, and I'll have it, too!" He rapped the table with his knuckles. Hugh had no recollection now of past generosities. His selfish materialism saw only money that might be his. "I know all about the strike," he went on, "and there's no green in my eye!" "How much will you take for the property?" Hugh laughed again jeeringly. "That's your game, is it? But I'm not such a numskull! Whatever you could offer, it's worth more to me. You've found a good thing here, and you'd like to skin me as a butcher skins a sheep." In the warmer air of the cabin the liquor he had drunk was firing his brain, and an old suspicion leaped to his tongue. "I know you, Satan Sanderson," he sneered. "You were always the same precious hypocrite in the old days, pretending to be so almighty virtuous, while you looked out for number one. I saw through you then, too, when you were posing as my friend and trying your best all along to queer me with the old man! I knew it well enough. I knew what the reason was, too! You wanted Jessica! You--" Self-control left Harry suddenly, as a ship's sail is whipped from its gaskets in a white squall. Before the words could be uttered, his fingers were at Hugh's throat. At that instant there was the sound of running feet outside, a hurried knock at the door and an agitated voice that chilled Harry's blood to ice. His hands relaxed their hold; he dragged Hugh to the door of the inner room, thrust him inside, shut and bolted it upon him. Then he went and opened the outer door. CHAPTER XXXIV THE TEMPTATION Jessica's eyes met Harry's in a look he could not translate, save that it held both yearning and anguish.