injuring Sergeant Tom; but
Pretty Pierre--that was another matter. Yet she remembered too that her
father had appeared the more anxious of the two about the Sergeant's
sleep. She recalled that he said: "Yes, it's all right, if he doesn't
sleep too long."

But Pierre could play a part, she knew, and could involve others
in trouble, and escape himself. He was a man with a reputation for
occasional wickednesses of a naked, decided type. She knew that he
was possessed of a devil, of a very reserved devil, but liable to bold
action on occasions. She knew that he valued the chances of life or
death no more than he valued the thousand and one other chances of small
importance, which occur in daily experience. It was his creed that one
doesn't go till the game is done and all the cards are played. He had a
stoic indifference to events.

He might be capable of poisoning--poisoning! ah, that thought! of
poisoning Sergeant Tom for some cause. But her father? The two seemed to
act alike in the matter. Could her father approve of any harm happening
to Tom? She thought of the meal he had eaten, of the coffee he had
drunk. The coffee-was that the key? But she said to herself that she was
foolish, that her love had made her so. No, it could not be.

But a fear grew upon her, strive as she would against it. She waited
silently and watched, and twice or thrice made ineffectual efforts
to rouse him. Her father came in once. He showed anxiety; that was
unmistakable, but was it the anxiety of guilt of any kind? She said
nothing. At five o'clock matters abruptly came to a climax. Jen was in
the kitchen, but, hearing footsteps in the sitting-room, she opened the
door quietly. Her father was bending over Sergeant Tom, and Pierre was
speaking: "No, no, Galbraith, it is all right. You are a fool. It could
not kill him."

"Kill him--kill him," she repeated gaspingly to herself.

"You see he was exhausted; he may sleep for hours yet. Yes, he is safe,
I think."

"But Jen, she suspects something, she--"

"Hush!" said Pretty Pierre. He saw her standing near. She had glided
forward and stood with flashing eyes turned, now upon the one, and now
upon the other. Finally they rested on Galbraith.

"Tell me what you have done to him; what you and Pretty Pierre have
done to him. You have some secret. I will know." She leaned forward,
something of the tigress in the poise of her body. "I tell you, I
will know." Her voice was low, and vibrated with