"You're mad, I tell you!" roared Rockamore. "Whoever stuffed you with such idiotic rot as that is making gammon of you! That conversation is a chimera of some disordered mind, if it isn't merely part of a deliberate conspiracy of yours against me! You'll suffer for this, my man! I'll break you if it is the last act of my life! Such a conference never took place, and you know it!" "'Come, Lawton, be sensible; half a loaf is better than no bread,'" Blaine quoted slowly. "'There is no blackmail about this--it is an ordinary business proposition.' "'It's a damnable crooked scheme, and I shall have nothing to do with it. This is final! My hands are clean, and I can look every man in the face and tell him to go where you can go now!' "You remember that, don't you, Rockamore?" Blaine interrupted himself to ask sharply. "Do you also recall your reply?--'How about poor Herbert Armstrong? His wife--'" "It's a lie! A d--d lie!" cried Rockamore. "I was not in this room that night! Such a conversation never occurred! Who told you of this? Who dares accuse me?" "I do!" A clear, flute-like voice, resonant in its firmness, rang out from behind him as he spoke, and he wheeled abruptly, to find Anita standing with her slender form outlined against the dark, rich velvet of the curtains. Her head was thrown back, her eyes blazing; and as she faced him, she slowly raised her arm and pointed a steady finger at the recoiling figure. "I accuse you, Bertrand Rockamore, of the murder of my father! It was I who heard your conversation here in this room; it was I who found the vial which contained the poison you used when your arguments and threats failed! I am not mistaken--I knew that I could never be mistaken if I heard that voice again, shaken, as it was that night, with rage and defiance--and fear! I knew that I should hear it again some time, and all these weeks I have listened for it, until this moment. Mr. Blaine, this is the man!" [Illustration: Her head was thrown back, her eyes blazing: and as she faced him, she slowly raised her arm and pointed a steady finger at the recoiling figure.] "Anita, you have lost your mind!" With the shock of the girl's appearance, a steely calm had come to the Englishman, and although a tremor ran through his tones, he held them well in leash. "My poor child, you do not know what you are saying.