at--if it pleases you," sneered Palmer. "The
fact remains that it was _you_ who killed him."

Again she shivered. "Yes," she said, "I killed him."

"And that's why I hate you," Palmer went on, calm and
deliberate--except his eyes; they were terrible. "A few
minutes ago--when I was exulting that he would probably
die--just then I found that opened cable on the mantel. Do
you know what it did to me? It made me hate you. When I read
it----" Freddie puffed at his cigarette in silence. She
dropped weakly to the chair at the dressing table.

"Curse it!" he burst out. "I loved him. Yes, I was crazy
about him--and am still. I'm glad I killed him. I'd do it
again. I had to do it. He owed me his life. But that
doesn't make me forgive _you_."

A long silence. Her fingers wandered among the articles
spread upon the dressing table. He said:

"You're getting ready to leave?"

"I'm going to a hotel at once."

"Well, you needn't. I'm leaving. You're done with me. But
I'm done with you." He rose, bent upon her his wicked glance,
sneering and cruel. "You never want to see me again. No more
do I ever want to see you again. I wish to God I never had
seen you. You cost me the only friend I ever had that I cared
about. And what's a woman beside a friend--a _man_ friend?
You've made a fool of me, as a woman always does of a
man--always, by God! If she loves him, she destroys him. If
she doesn't love him, he destroys himself."

Susan covered her face with her bare arms and sank down at the
dressing table. "For pity's sake," she cried brokenly, "spare
me--spare me!"

He seized her roughly by the shoulder. "Just flesh!" he said.
"Beautiful flesh--but just female. And look what a fool
you've made of me--and the best man in the world dead--over
yonder! Spare you? Oh, you'll pull through all right.
You'll pull through everything and anything--and come out
stronger and better looking and better off. Spare you! Hell!
I'd have killed you instead of him if I'd known I was going to
hate you after I'd done the other thing. I'd do it yet--you
dirty skirt!"

He jerked her unresisting form to its feet, gazed at her
like an insane fiend. With a sob he seized her in his arms,
crushed her against his breast, sunk his fingers deep into her
hair, kissed it, grinding his teeth as he kissed. "I hate
you, damn you--and I love you!" He flung her back into the
chair--out of his life. "You'll never see me again!