convenient," she added.

But with Aline watching them the spirit of badinage in him was
overmatched. He gave it up and asked what kind of a rig he should send
round. Virginia furnished him the necessary specifications, and he
turned to go.

As he left the room Simon Harley entered. They met face to face, and
after an instant's pause each drew aside to allow the other to pass.
The New Yorker inclined his head silently and moved forward toward his
wife. Ridgway passed down the corridor and into the elevator.

As the days of the trial passed excitement grew more tense. The lawyers
for the prosecution and the defense made their speeches to a crowded
and enthralled court-room. There was a feverish uncertainty in the air.
It reached a climax when the jury stayed out for eleven hours before
coming to a verdict. From the moment it filed back into the court-room
with solemn faces the dramatic tensity began to foreshadow the tragedy
about to be enacted. The woman Harley had made a widow sat erect and
rigid in the seat where she had been throughout the trial. Her eyes
blazed with a hatred that bordered madness. Ridgway had observed that
neither Aline Harley nor Virginia was present, and a note from the
latter had just reached him to the effect that Aline was ill with the
strain of the long trial. Afterward Ridgway could never thank his pagan
gods enough that she was absent.

There was a moment of tense waiting before the judge asked:

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?"

The foreman rose. "We have, your honor."

A folded note was handed to the judge. He read it slowly, with an
inscrutable face.

"Is this your verdict, gentlemen of the jury?"

"It is, your honor."

Silence, full and rigid, held the room after the words "Not guilty" had
fallen from the lips of the judge. The stillness was broken by a shock
as of an electric bolt from heaven.

The exploding echoes of a pistol-shot reverberated. Men sprang wildly
to their feet, gazing at each other in the distrust that fear
generates. But one man was beyond being startled by any more earthly
sounds. His head fell forward on the table in front of him, and a thin
stream of blood flowed from his lips. It was Simon Harley, found
guilty, sentenced, and executed by the judge and jury sitting in the
outraged, insane heart of the woman he had made a widow.

Mrs. Edwards had shot him through the head with a revolver she had
carried in her shoppingbag to exact ve