nce to make good. So, you
see, Maggie, it looks as if you were right when you predicted that I was
going to fail in everything I said I was going to do."

"Larry--Miss Sherwood believes that!" she breathed. And then she
remembered again, and caught his arm with sudden energy. "Larry, you
mustn't stay here!"

"Why not?"

Her answer was almost identical with one she had given the previous
evening. "Because Barney Palmer may be here the next minute!"

His response was in sense also identical. "Then I'll stay right here.
There's no one I want to see as much as Barney Palmer. And this time
I'll have it out with him!"

Maggie was in consternation at this unexpected twist which was not in
the brain-manuscript of her play at all--which indeed threatened to
take her play right out of her hands. "Please go, Larry!" she cried
desperately. "And please give me a chance! You'll spoil it all if you
stay!"

"I'm going to stay right here," was his grim response.

She realized there was no changing him. She glimpsed a closet door
behind him, and caught at the chance of saving at least a fragment of
her drama.

"Stay, then but, Larry, please give me a chance to do what I want to
do! Please!" By this time she had dragged him across the room and
had started to unlock the closet. "Just wait in here--and keep quiet!
Please!"

He took the key from her fumbling hands, unlocked the door, and slipped
the key into his pocket. "All right--I'll give you your chance," he
promised.

He stepped through the door and closed it upon himself, entombing
himself in blackness. The next moment the glare of a pocket flash was in
his face, blinding him.

"Larry Brainard!" gritted a low voice in the darkness.

Larry could see nothing, but there was no mistaking that voice. "Red
Hannigan!" he exclaimed.

"Yes--you damned squealer! And I'm going to finish you off right here!"

The light clicked out, and a pair of lean hands almost closed on Larry's
wind-pipe. But Larry caught the wrists of the older man in a grip the
other could not break. There was a brief struggle in the blackness of
the closet, then the slighter man stood still with his wrists manacled
by Larry's hands.

"Evidently you haven't a gun on you, Red, or you, wouldn't have tried
this," Larry commented. "Anyhow, you couldn't have got away with killing
in a big hotel, whether you had strangled me or shot me. I don't blame
you for being sore at me, Red--only you've got me all wrong.