It was worse than any loss of money to have such a wretch as this so near one, so shudderingly, so awfully near, to be so close as this to the bottomless pit itself! What was she to do? Escape? The possibility did not cross her mind. Not once did she think of letting Tom's money go. All but annihilated by terror in that heartbeat, she herself was the last thing she thought of. Light and electricity are swift, but thought is swifter. As I said, this was all in the fraction of a second. Then Mrs. Laughton was on her feet again and before a pendulum could have more than swung backward. The man must know she saw him. She took the light brass bedstead and sent it rolling away from her with all her might and main leaving the creature uncovered. He lay easily on one side, a stout little club like a policeman's billy in his hand, some weapons gleaming in his belt, putting up the other hand to grasp the bedstead as it rolled away. "You look pretty, don't you?" said she. Perhaps this was as much of a shock to the man as his appearance had been to her. He was not acquainted with the saying that it is only the unexpected that happens. "Get up," said she. "I'd _be_ a man if I _was_ a man. Get up. I'm not going to hurt you." If the intruder had any sense of humor, this might have touched it; the idea of this little fairy-queen of a woman, almost small enough to have stepped out of a rain-lily, hurting him! But it was so different from what he had been awaiting that it startled him; and then, perhaps, he had some of the superstition that usually haunts the evil and ignorant, and felt that such small women were uncanny. He was on his feet now, towering over her. "No," said he, gruffly; "I don't suppose you're going to hurt me. And I'm not going to hurt you, if you hand over that money." "What money?" opening her eyes with a wide sort of astonishment. "Come! None of your lip. I want that money!" "Why, I haven't any money! Oh, yes, I have, to be sure, but--" "I thought you'd remember it," said the man, with a grin. "But I want it!" she exclaimed. "I want it, too!" said he. "Oh, it wouldn't do you any good," she reasoned. "Fifteen dollars. And it's all the money I've got in the world!" "I don't want no fifteen dollars," said the man; "and I don't want none of your chinning. I want the money your husband's going to pay off with--" "Oh, Tom's money!" in quite a tone of relief. "Oh! I haven't anything to do with Tom's money. If you can get any money out of Tom it's more than _I_ can do. And I wouldn't advise you to try, either; for he always carries a pistol in the same pocket with it, and he's covered all over with knives and derringers and bull-dogs, so that sometimes _I_ don't like to go near him till he's unloaded. You have to, in this country of desperadoes. You see--"