"Wait a minute," said Mary. "I'll go with you to the door." She did go. She followed him down the dark stairway, creaking noisily under their shamed feet, and she stood for a moment in the black hall, holding the brass knob of the door, as he passed to the step outside. Mary slipped the dead-latch, ready to bolt the door. "Max," she said. He turned quickly, nearly knocking over, as he did so, the milk-bottles that were lined, in a white row, upon the step. "Yes?" he returned, and grinned sheepishly. She thrust out her towsled head and looked up and down the gray morning street. The block was empty. She drew her head clear of the door. She was still trembling, but from neither cold nor fear. "You ain't goin' without kissin' me?" she asked. But a reaction of disgust had seized him. "Yes, I am," he said. Mary's one hand tightened on the knob; the other flattened itself against the nearest panel of the door, ready to push hard. "All right," she replied, with a sudden change in her voice that, still low, became tense and metallic. "You think I'm--I'm done for, Max. Well--_you're done for, too!_" The man's jaw dropped. His olive face was ashen. His eyes stared. "What do you mean?" he asked. Mary's mouth was wreathed in a smile. "You know," she answered. Max retreated so suddenly that he nearly fell down the stone steps. "You've--you've----" he gasped. "Yes," said Mary. "It's a lie! You're tryin' to scare me!" His jaw worked spasmodically. "It's a damned lie!" he repeated. "You don't believe me?" the girl inquired. If she had looked for heroics, if she had feared melodrama, she was as yet disappointed. The knees of Max shook under him; he was in abject terror. "It's a lie," he muttered over and over. "It's a damn' lie!" "Think what you please," said Mary. She was still smiling, still serene. "You believed I'd forgot, didn't you? Well, I didn't forget, Max Grossman, an' now you'll remember. If you don't yet think I'm givin' you a straight story, all you have to do is just one thing: _wait_." Max uttered an inarticulate cry and threw himself at her, but he only bashed his head against the closed door. Mary had shut it, and in time. Behind it, in the dark hallway, she lay half fainting. "It's the last of you, Max," she laughed. And it was. XXVIII HUSKS OF THE SWINE