"You tell me what you know, and tell me now, or I'm going to kill you!" he gritted. "Tell me before I have to choke the life out of you." His fingers squeezed about the artist's throat, and Sarbella had to fight him off to break the grip. With a tremendous heave of the muscles he flung Gilmore back, and the novelist, reeling, lost his balance and plunged heavily to the floor. He lay absolutely still. Victor Sarbella stood over him, staring down at him pityingly. "I am sorry for you, Kirklan," he said huskily: "yes, I am sorry--very sorry." He went to the door, unlocked it with the key, and turned, just as Gilmore was struggling up. "I cannot very well remain your guest now, Kirklan. Oh, I don't mean just this." His fingers touched his torn collar, the rumpled bosom of his dress shirt. "But I'll stay until to-morrow. We can't forget that we are under obligations to the publishers. Yes, I will wait until to-morrow; see if you can't pull yourself together long enough to talk things over." Gilmore gave no sign that he had heard, and Victor Sarbella passed on out of the studio and down the old wooden steps of the stable. When the door closed, Kirklan Gilmore slowly dragged himself to his feet and moved toward the chair by the desk. Like a rheumatic old man with protesting bone joints, he lowered himself into the chair, his body sagging limply forward until he lay across the desk, his face pillowed in his arms. He lay like that, his senses numbed, almost as if he were dead, for a long time. CHAPTER VII THE GET-AWAY Not for a moment did Don Haskins doubt that Helen Gilmore--legally Helen Haskins, by grace of an unsundered legal tie previously knotted--would "come through" with the thousand dollars that he had demanded as the price of his silence. She wouldn't dare refuse; bigamy is a sternly met crime in New York State. With a thousand dollars to the good he felt that his get-away was safely assured, for a thousand dollars would enable him to put a long distance behind him. And so, sitting in the squalid, shabby little third-floor room in Eighth Avenue Annie's disreputable haven for those hunted men who can raise the price of her protection, he was laying his plans. Several points of the compass beckoned to him; California intrigued him, but he was also inclined toward Cuba, and, even at a lesser distance, Florida waved its picturesque palms beckoningly before his mental vision. He had thought, too, of South America, but was wise enough to know that this trip would have to contemplate the dangers of getting a passport. A passport is not readily secured by a man of Don Haskins' unsavory standing as a citizen; so he scratched South America off his list.