--it was only that they had planned to accomplish the
Tocsin's death, as they had her father's and uncle's, and ESTABLISH
the false Henry LaSalle in undisputed possession and ownership of the
estate--and had failed in that--up to the present. But the material
results remained the same, so long as the Tocsin, to save her life,
was forced to remain in hiding, so long as proof that would convict the
Crime Club was not forthcoming--SO LONG AS THAT MAN LIVED!

Time passed to which Jimmie Dale was oblivious. At times he walked
slowly, scarcely moving; at times his pace was a nervous, hurried
stride, that was almost a run. And as he was oblivious to time, so was
he oblivious to his surroundings, to the direction which he took.
At times his forehead was damp with moisture that was not there from
physical exertion; at times his face, deathly white, was full as of
the vision of some shuddering, abhorrent sight; at times his lips were
thinned into a straight line, and there was a glitter in the dark eyes
that was not good to see, while his hands at his sides clenched until
the skin, tight over the knuckles, was an ivory white. To kill a man!

What other way was there? The proof that it had taken Hilton Travers
years to obtain, the proof on which the Tocsin's life depended, was
destroyed utterly, irreparably. It could never be duplicated--Hilton
Travers was dead--MURDERED. Murder! That thought again! It was their
own weapon! Murder! Would one kill a venomous reptile in whose fangs
was death? What right had this man to life, whose life was forfeit even
under the law--for murder? Was she to drag on an intolerable existence
among the dregs and the scum of the underworld, she, in her refinement
and her purity, to exist among the vile and dissolute, in daily, hourly
peril of her life, because the weapons that these inhuman vultures
had used to rob her, to destroy those she loved, to make of her life a
hideous, joyless thing, should not be used against them?

But to kill a man! To steal upon a man with cold intent in the blackness
of the night--and take his life! To be a murderer! To know the horror
of blood forever upon one's hands, to rise, cold-sweated, in the night,
fearful of the very shadows around one, to live with every detail of
that fearsome act sweeping like some dread spectre at unexpected moments
upon the consciousness! He put up his hands before his face, as though
to blot out the thought from him. Mind and soul recoiled b