ding in a gasp and
the sound of a heavy body falling to the floor! What, in God's name,
had happened to the old man? And that yell was enough to awaken the
entire world!

Detroit Jim groped his way across the room. He could hear now no
further sound from the old man.... Steps outside! He sank upon his
knees, his hands outstretched. He heard a lock turn; then following
upon a click the whole universe went white, and dazzling and
scorching!

He raised one arm to his blinking, throbbing eyes. A rough voice
shouted: "Hands up!"

There was a rush of feet, the rough clutch of hands at his
shoulders.... Presently he found himself blinking down upon the
fear-contorted face of Old Man Anderson dirt-streaked, bearded, gaunt,
dead!

Slowly his eyes crawled beyond the body on the floor.... Before him,
its empty arms stretched toward him, its straps and wires twisting
snakily in front of him, was The Chair!

"AURORE"

By ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD

From _Pictorial Review_

"Your name!--_Votre nom_?" Crossman added, for in the North Country
not many of the habitants are bilingual.

She looked at him and smiled slowly, her teeth white against
cardinal-flower lips.

"Ma name? Aurore," she answered in a voice as mystically slow as her
smile, while the mystery of her eyes changed and deepened.

Crossman watched her, fascinated. She was like no woman he had ever
seen, radiating a personality individual and strange. "Aurore," he
repeated. "You're not the dawn, you know; not a bit like it." He did
not expect her to own to any knowledge of the legend of her name, but
she nodded her head understandingly.

"It was the Cure name' me so," she explained. "But the Cure and me,"
she shrugged, "never could--how you say?--see--hear--one the
other--so, I would not be a blonde just for spite to him--I am a very
black dawn, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"A black dawn," he repeated. Her words unleashed his fancy--her heavy
brows and lashes, her satiny raven hair, her slow voice that seemed
made of silence, her eyes that changed in expression so rapidly that
they dizzied one with a sense of space. "Black Dawn!" He stared at her
long, which in no wise disconcerted her.

"Will you want, then, Antoine and me?" she asked at length.

He woke from his dream with a savage realization that, most surely, he
wanted her. "Yes. Of course--you--and Antoine. Wait, _attendez_, don't
go yet."

"_Why_ not?" she smiled. "I have what I came for."

Her hand was