seated at dinner with Bull
Sternford had lit a fire of bitter hatred in his Teutonic heart. So he
paced the room and permitted the fierce tide to flood the channels of
sanity and set them awash with the ready evil of his impulse.

From the first moment of the girl's story of her successful effort with
this man, Sternford, this vaunting rival, Peterman had been bitterly
stirred. The man's change of plans at her bidding he had understood on
the instant. The man from Labrador had not changed his plans at the
bidding of the Skandinavia. It was the girl who had induced him. It was
she who had attracted him. Then the boat trip, and the girl's confession
of his having, perhaps, saved her life. What had preceded that incident?
What had followed it? And when Elas Peterman asked himself such
questions it was simple for him to find the answer. He had seen
Sternford, and had judged the position. He knew what would have happened
had he been in this man's place. Sternford wasn't the man to throw away
such chances, either. He had fallen for the girl, and she doubtless
had--The picture he had witnessed at the Chateau had left him without
any doubt. The driving up together from the docks, the telephone.
Sternford had taken her to her apartment. Oh, it was all as clear as
daylight. Then the girl's pity for the man who was to feel the weight of
the Skandinavia's wrathful might. She had said he was reasonable. She
had hinted that he, Peterman, had blundered. There was only one
reasonable interpretation to the position. And it did not leave him
guessing for one single moment.

Once he passed a fleshy hand up over his forehead and brushed back his
dark hair. Once he came to a pause before his window and stood gazing
out at the falling snow with hot eyes. No such fury of jealousy had ever
entered into his life before. Never had he dreamed before of the
tremendous hold this girl had obtained upon him. His claim on her had
all seemed so natural, so easy. He had looked upon her as property that
was indisputably his. He might have learned something from his feelings
when he had paraded her before Hellbeam. But he had not done so. Now he
knew. Now he knew the whole measure of them. And the bitterness of his
awakening was maddening.

Well, Bull Sternford should get away with no play of that sort at his
expense. He warned himself that he was no simple fool to be played with.
And if Nancy wanted the man--But he broke away from under the lash of
i