For a moment he was still, and she lost him against the shadows. Then he moved again. Her gun blossomed roaring flame and its stock kicked against her shoulder. The shadow leaped, became a man as it fled across a path of moonlight. He was young, and he was smiling toward the window. Then he was swallowed up in the deeper shadows. For a moment she was aghast, unbelieving. She had missed! Then, like a frigid hand clutching her heart, came the realization: deliberately, without conscious volition, she had pulled the gun muzzle aside when she fired. She leaned against the wall, weak and perspiring. It was true, then. She yearned so deeply for a man, she so feared the age that crept up on her, that the principles of the Constitution no longer held real meaning for her. She did not seek to fire again. She knelt on the floor by the window and waited, looking listlessly into the embers of the fire across the room. She felt suspended in a nightmare. She heard the crack as the lock was broken on a window in the rear of the house, and still she did not stir. But her heart began beating faster, a cold beating that did not warm her body. She began to shiver uncontrollably. She heard the soft, wary footsteps as he came through the house. In the dimness, she saw his bulk come through the parlor door. A black veil passed momentarily before her eyes, and her gun slipped from lax fingers and fell to the floor with a clatter. He leaped to one side, and the glow of the dying fire glinted from his weapon. But she stood up against the window, in the moonlight, and spread her hands so he could see she was no longer armed. "I am helpless," she said in a voice that nearly choked her. "I cannot resist your taking me for your love." His laugh boomed out in the rich darkness, and she could see that he did not lower his weapon. "Have no fear of that, old woman," he said. "I'm only going to put you out and take your house." End of Project Gutenberg's The Last Brave Invader, by Charles L. Fontenay