He looked at her where she stood breathlessly, with arms extended, her face bent and pleading, and the sight opened wide within him an abyss that thronged thick with evil passions. The gentler purpose that for a heart-beat had fluttered white wings above the chasm dropped plummet-like into the depths. Give her up? Now, when she came to him with her offer? Resign her--to that tippling _dilettante_, that flamboyant fop and fool who had drowned his success in a bottle? Not he! A savage elation sprang up in him. "When you are my wife!" he said. She straightened, withdrawing her arms with a little gesture of despair and relinquishment. "Where are the letters?" He pointed to the safe. "They are there." "When will you give them to me?" "To-night--the same hour you marry me. You shall burn them if you like, here--in this very room--with your own hands." "You swear?" "I do. And whatever else men may say of me, there is no man living who can say I have ever lied." There was an instant's silence and when Craig spoke again all feeling had vanished from his voice. He was once more the deliberate and incisive man of action. He snapped the lid of his watch. "It is very late," he said, "but it can be managed. It shall be at the hotel--you can rest there while I make the necessary arrangements. My chauffeur is off-duty to-night, but it is only a block away, fortunately. Shall you mind walking?" "No," she said, apathetically. Harry was holding himself hard. They were going. He saw clearly his course of action. His two partners in that sorry escapade might have what they had come for--he could compound with them, could take the letters to the hotel and put them into Echo's hands. She would never need to know how he had gained them--that drunken episode, whose very memory must bring a shaming flush to his cheek, should be buried forever! The letters would not have come to her from Craig, and she would stand absolved of her promise. But even as this ran through his mind, fate thrust its hidden hand from the cloud. "One moment," said Craig. "When I came in, it was beginning to rain. You will need a cloak of some sort." He turned abruptly to the curtained alcove. The pressure on Harry's temple relaxed. The black mask thrust forward, the man with the sand-coloured hair parted the hangings--his outstretched arm shot out toward the advancing figure. Harry's gaze saw something red leap up from Craig's temple, even before the terrifying concussion rocked the room--a sound threaded by Echo's scream.