He could not. The voice thrilled to his hearing, as plainly, as articulately as it had ever done when she had stood before him. He laid down the weapon, and passed his hand in a dazed sort of manner over his brows. Laurence Stanninghame was saved. He stared around, somewhat unsteadily, as though more than half expecting to behold her there in the room. What did it all mean? At any rate she had saved him. Was it for good or for ill? Then the full irony of the position struck upon his satirical soul. His mind went back over his acquaintance with Lilith. What if his disillusioning had been a little less complete? What if he had fled the rich attractiveness of her presence, had shunned her with heroic scrupulousness, acting from some fiddle-faddle notion of so-called "honour"? Just this, he, Laurence Stanninghame, would at that moment be lying a lifeless thing, with brains scattered all over the room--a memory, a standing monument of commonplace weakness. But she had saved him from this--had saved him as surely and completely as though she had struck the weapon from his hand. Was it for good or for ill? He fell thinking again. Had he indeed played his last card, or did one more solitary trump yet lurk up his sleeve unknown to himself? No, it could not be; and his thoughts grew dark again. Yet he was safe now--safe from himself. Lilith had done it--her influence, her love! He thought long and thought hard, but still hopelessly. And again, unconsciously, he broke out into soliloquy. "Yes, I'd sell my soul to the devil himself!" "Maybe the old man would be dead off the deal. Likely he reckons you a dead cert. already, Stanninghame." Laurence did not start at the voice, which was that of Hazon, whose shadow darkened the door. The up-country man at that moment especially noticed that he did not. "Dare say you're right, Hazon," was the reply. "That's it, come in," which the other had already done. "Talking out loud, was I? It's a d---- bad habit, and grows on one." "It does. Say, though, what game were you up to with that plaything?" glancing meaningly at the six-shooter lying on the table. "This? Oh, I thought likely it wanted cleaning." "So?" and the corners of Hazon's saturnine mouth drooped in ever so faint a grin as his keen eyes fixed themselves for a moment full upon the other's face. Laurence had forgotten the tell-tale imprint left in the centre of his forehead by the muzzle. "So? See here, Stanninghame, don't be at the trouble to invent any more sick old lies, but put the thing away. It might go off. Don't mind me; I've been through the same stage myself." "Have you? How did it feel, eh?" said Laurence, with a sort of weary imperturbability, filling his pipe and pushing the pouch across the table to his friend. "Bad. Ah, that's right! Instead of fooling about 'cleaning' guns at such times, fill your pipe. That's the right lay, depend upon it."