"For me?" She laughed scornfully. "Do I look like a woman who would go to Siberia?" "Be careful, Miss. As I said, I don't want to put the cuffs on unless I have to." She laughed again. It did not have a pleasant sound in the officer's ears. He had heard women, suicidal bent, laugh like that. "I'll ask you for that ring on your finger." "Do you think there is poison in it?" "I shouldn't be surprised," he admitted. She slipped the ring from her finger and gave it to him. "There is poison in it; so be careful how you handle it," she said. The policeman accepted it gingerly and dropped it into his capacious pocket. It tinkled as it fell against the handcuffs. At that moment the other policeman broke in the door. "All right, Dolan; she's given up the game." "She didn't kill the man after all," said Dolan. "He's alive?" she screamed. "Yes; and they've taken him off to the Tombs. Just a scalp wound. He'll be all right in a day or two." "Alive!" murmured Olga. She had not killed the man she loved, then? And if they were indeed taken to Siberia, she would be with him until the end of things. With her handsome head proudly erect, she walked toward the door. She paused for a moment to look at the portrait of Hargreave. Somehow it seemed to smile at her ironically. Then on, down the stairs, between the two officers, she went. Her glance traveled coolly from face to face, and stopped at Florence's. There she saw pity. "You are sorry for me?" she asked skeptically. "Oh, yes! I forgive you," said the generous Florence. "Thanks! Officers, I am ready." So the Countess Olga passed through that hall door forever. How many times had she entered it, with guile and treachery in her heart? It was the game. She had played it and lost, and she must pay her debts to Fate the fiddler. Siberia! The tin or lead mines, the ankle-chains, the knout, and many things that were far worse to a beautiful woman! Well, so long as Braine was at her side, she would suffer all these things without a murmur. And always there would be a chance, a chance! When they heard the taxicab rumble down the driveway to the street, Hargreave turned to Florence. "Come along, now, and we'll have the bad taste taken off our tongues. To win out is the true principle of life. It takes off some of the tinsel and glamour, but the end is worth while." They all trooped up-stairs to Florence's room. So wonderful is the power and attraction of money that they forgot the humiliation of their late enemies. Hargreave approached the portrait of himself, took it from the wall, pressed a button on the back, which fell outward. Behold! There, in neat packages of a hundred thousand each, lay the mystic million! The spectators were awed into silence for a moment. Perhaps the thought of each was identical--the long struggle, the terrible hazards, the deaths, that had taken place because of this enormous sum of money.