he road to
Clamart, so you needn't lie to me any longer. It's no good."

She paused for just an instant there, and in the pause St. Marie heard
Stewart give a sort of inarticulate exclamation. It seemed to express
anger and it seemed also to express fear. But the woman swept on, and
her voice began to be louder. She said:

"I've given you your chance. You didn't deserve it, but I've given it
you--and you've told me nothing but lies. Well, you'll lie no more. This
ends it."

Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling shuffle of feet and a low,
hoarse cry of utter terror--a cry more animal-like than human. He heard
the cry break off abruptly in something that was like a cough and a
whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body falling with a
loose rattle upon the floor.

With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway
and torn aside the heavy portiere. It was a sleeping-room he looked
into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the
Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric
lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the
wall, and these were turned on, so that the room was brightly
illuminated. Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain
Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood
upright beside him, gazing down upon him quite calmly. In her right
hand, which hung at her side, she held a little flat black automatic
pistol of the type known as Brownings--and they look like toys, but they
are not.

Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting
the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort
whatever to resist him. She looked into his face quite frankly and
unmoved, and she shook her head.

"I haven't harmed him," she said. "I was going to, yes--and then
myself--but he didn't give me a chance. He fell down in a fit." She
nodded down toward the man who lay writhing at their feet. "I frightened
him," she said, "and he fell in a fit. He's an epileptic, you know.
Didn't you know that? Oh yes."

Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.
And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.

"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible! Horrible! I can't bear to look. I saw
him in a fit once before--long ago--and I couldn't bear even to speak to
him for a month. I thought he had been cured. He said--Ah, it's