p, that isn't good enough. No padded cell for me! And I'm not going
to have my name dragged through the courts, and the case figuring in the
newspapers for months. I've got a reason I think you will all admit is a
good one." Again his voice changed. "That would break my sister's
heart," he ended brokenly.

At the words Bangs uttered an odd sound, half a gasp and half a groan.
Epstein, again in his pit of wretchedness, caught it.

"Now you see the job ve done!" he muttered. "Now you see how ve looked
after him, like she told us to!"

Bangs paid no attention to him.

"What are you going to do?" he heavily asked Laurie.

"I'll tell you, on one condition--that you give me your word, all three
of you, not to try in any way to interfere or to prevent it. You
couldn't, anyway, so don't make the blunder of trying. You know what I'm
up against. There's only one way out."

He looked at them in turn. Doris and Epstein merely stared back, with
the effect of not taking in what he was saying. But Bangs recoiled.

"No, by God!" he cried. "No! No!"

Laurie went on as if he had not spoken.

"I promised Perkins to be in my rooms at eight o'clock to-morrow
morning," he muttered, and they had to strain their ears to catch the
words. "I did _not_ promise to be--alive."

This time it was Doris who gasped out something that none of them heard.
For a moment Laurie sat silent in his chair, watching her with a strange
intentness. Then, in turn, his black eyes went to the faces of Bangs and
Epstein. Huddled in the big chair he occupied, the manager sat looking
straight before him, his eyes set in agony, his jaw dropped. He had the
aspect of a man about to have a stroke. Bangs sat leaning forward,
staring at the floor. The remaining color had left his face. He appeared
to have wholly forgotten the presence of others in the room. He was
muttering something to himself, the same thing over and over and over:
"And it's all up to us. It's--all--up--to us."

For an interval which none of the three ever forgot, Laurie watched the
tableau. Then, rising briskly, he ostentatiously stretched himself, and
in loud, cheerful tones answered Rodney's steady babble.

"Yes, old chap, it's all up to you," he said. "So what do you think of
this as a climax for the play?"

Grinning down at his pal, he waited for a reply. It did not come.
Epstein was still unable to speak or move. Doris seemed to have heard
the words without taking them in. But at last B