He paused and squared his shoulders with a deep breath. “They put it on the market all right and they made some millionaires--but I wasn't one of 'em, Kiddo! They got me to sign a paper that skinned me out of every dollar as slick as you can pull an eel through your fingers. I hired another lawyer and gave him half he could get to beat 'em. He fought like a tiger and two days before I met you he got his verdict and they paid it--just ten thousand dollars. Think of it--ten thousand dollars! And each of them got a million cash. They sold it outright for two millions and a half. My lawyer got five thousand dollars, and I got five thousand dollars. That's mine, anyhow. It's in that bag there. I'm working on a new set of tools now in my shop. I'm going to get that money back from the two thieves who stole it from me by law. I'll take it by force, the way they took it. If I can croak them both in the fight--well, there'll be two thieves less to rob honest men and women, that's all.” “Oh, Jim!” Mary gasped, lifting a trembling hand to her throat as if to tear open her collar. “You're mad. You don't know what you're saying----” “Don't fool yourself, Kiddo,” he interrupted fiercely. “My eyes are open now, and I've got a level head back of 'em, too. I've doped it all out. You ought to 'a' heard that lawyer give me a few lessons in business when he'd skinned me and salted my hide. He was good-natured and confidential. He seemed to love me. `Business is war, sonny,' he piped, between the puffs of the big Havana cigar he was smoking--`war! war to the knife! We got you off your guard and put the knife into you at the right minute--that's all. Don't take it so hard! Invent something else and keep your eyes peeled. You ought to love us for giving you an education in business early in life. You're young. You won't have to learn your lesson again. Go to work, sonny, in your shop, and turn out another new tool for the advancement of trade!'” He paused and smiled grimly. “I've done it, too! I've just finished a little invention that'll crack any safe in New York in twenty minutes after I touch it.” He broke into a dry laugh, sat down and deliberately lighted a fresh cigarette. She studied his face with beating heart. Was he lost beyond all hope of reformation? Or was this the boyish bravado of an amateur criminal poisoned by the consciousness of wrong? She tried to think. She felt the red blood pounding through her heart and beating against her brain in suffocating waves of despair. In vivid flashes the scene of her marriage but two weeks ago, came back in tormenting memories. The solemn words she had spoken kept ringing like the throb of a funeral bell far up in the star-lit heavens----