Once was when he had struck Hamilton. He alone knew that when he hit that time it was with the lust to kill--even as Hamilton had shot to kill. The feeling lasted only the fraction of a second--merely while his fist was plunging toward Hamilton's chin. But, however brief, it had sprung from within him--a blood-red, frenzied desire to beat down the other man. At the moment he was not so much conscious of trying to protect her as to rid himself of Hamilton. The second mad moment had come in the cab, when he had looked down at her lips. As the passion to kill left him, another equally strong passion had taken its place. He had hungered for her lips--the very lips Hamilton, a moment before, had attempted to violate. He who all his life had looked as indifferently upon living lips as upon sculptured lips had suddenly found himself in the clutch of a mighty desire. For a second he had swayed under the temptation. He had been ready to risk everything, because for a heart-beat or two nothing else seemed to matter. In his madness, he had even dared think that delicate, sensitive mouth trembled a like desire. Even here in the dark, alone, something of the same desire returned. He began to pace the room. How she would have hated him had he yielded to that impulse! He shuddered as he pictured the look of horror that would have leaped into her dark eyes. Then she would have shrunk away frightened, and her eyes would have grown cold--those eyes that had only so lately warmed at all. Her face would have turned to marble--the face that only so lately had relaxed. She trusted him--trusted him to the extent of being willing to marry him to save herself from the very danger with which he had threatened her. Except that at the last moment he had resisted, he was no better than Hamilton. In her despair she had cried, "Why won't they let me alone?" And he had urged her to come with him, so that she might be let alone. He was to be merely her _camarade de voyage_--her big brother. Then, in less than twelve hours, he had become like the others. He felt unfit to remain in the next room to her--unfit to greet her in the morning. In an agony of remorse, he clenched his fists.