ie knows something--a whole lot----"

"It strikes me," frowned King, "that you know more of this than I gave
you credit for. Where do you come in?"

"I know--nearly all that it is necessary to know!" His eyes flashed
triumphantly. "Think I'm the man to let the crowd of you lift a fortune
right under my nose? Here is my proposition, and you'll thank your stars
that I make it: We are not friends, you and I, but that is no reason
that we cannot be business associates until this trick is turned. You
and I enter into a pact right now, purely business, you understand." He
was speaking more and more rapidly in the grip of a new emotion.
"Whatever we find we divide, fifty-fifty;----"

King's sudden laughter, no pleasant sound in Gratton's ears, checked the
rush of words. To accept Gratton as a partner--on a fifty-fifty split of
the spoils! Was the man crazy?

"I have been working with Brodie," shouted Gratton. "If I go on with him
now, with him and the men with him, six or eight of them taking what he
gives them either in money or in curses and orders--if, I say, I chip
in with him against you, what will the inevitable end be, I ask you?
Look at the odds----"

"The inevitable end," said King sternly, "will be that they'll pick your
bones and kick you out."

"I demand to know what word Gaynor sent----"

"Will you have him go, Mark?" said Gloria. "He--sickens me."

King, unleashed by her words, took a quick step forward.

"Gratton," he said, "you'd better go."

Gratton, rising to fresh fury, shouted at him:

"And leave you and her here? Alone? All night----"

King bore down upon him and struck him across the mouth, hurling him
back so that Gratton tripped and fell. Gloria rose and stood watching,
terrified and yet fascinated. She saw Gratton crawl to his feet; his
hand went out to the table to draw himself up; it found one of the heavy
bronze book-ends; the fingers gripped it so that the tendons stood out
like cords. She could see the faces of both men, Gratton's twitching and
vindictive, King's immobile, looking at once calm and terribly stern. If
there were two Glorias within her, one of them fled now; the other
watched with quick bright eyes and gloried in the man who had come at
her hour of direst need; one vanished, afraid, the other felt a little
thrill go singing through her blood. And though that bronze block, were
it hurled at King's head, might have been the death of him, she was not
once in doubt as to th