oor of the house under
surly espionage. It was plain to the shopkeeper that "the gent had made
a night of it." Dodd's eyes were heavy, his face was flushed, and he
lighted one cigarette after another with shaky hands.

Shortly before nine o'clock Kate Kilgour came out and walked down the
avenue on the way to her work. Dodd stared after her until she was
out of sight. Shame and anger and desire mingled in the steady gaze
he leveled on her; in her crisp freshness she represented both the
longed-for and the unattainable. He was conscious of a new sentiment
in regard to her. In the past his impatience had been tempered by the
comforting knowledge that she had promised herself to him--that she was
his to own, to possess after a bit of tantalizing procrastination. Now
he was not at all sure of her. He had been just a bit patronizing in
the past--his successes with women had inflated his conceit--he had
exhibited a rather careless air of proprietorship--his manner had said
to her and to others, "This is mine; look at it!" But now when he had
watched her out of sight jealousy, anger, the sour conviction that
he had forfeited her regard combined to make him desperate, and the
excesses of the night before kindled a flame which heated all his evil
passions.

He threw away his cigarette, cursed roundly aloud, and hurried across
the street into the Trelawny.

When Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to her suite she clung to the
door-casing, exhibiting much trepidation.

He stepped in, closed the door, and put his back against it.

"Have you got those hysterics out of you so that you can listen to me
and then talk sense?" he demanded, coarsely.

She went into her sitting-room and he followed, muttering:

"No wonder you ran away from me last night--no wonder you didn't have
the face to stay and take what you deserve. How in tophet I ever allowed
you to plan and manage I can't understand."

"You asked me to," she faltered.

"I didn't ask you to rig up a dirty conspiracy to queer me."

"Richard, you are not yourself. You have been drinking!" She tried to
exhibit protesting indignation and failed. "Come to me when you are
yourself."

"There's no more of this to-morrow business goes with me, Mrs. Kilgour.
I'll admit that you're Kate's mother. But just now you are something
else. You have tried to do me, and nobody gets by with that stuff--man,
woman, or child. We'll have our settlement here and now."

"I did the best I could," she w