hands, her little, weak, trembling
hands--Tom's honor, his good name and his success, their fortune, the
welfare of the whole family, the livelihood of all the men, the safety
of the enterprise! What made Tom risk things so! How could he put her in
such jeopardy? To be sure, he thought the dogs would be safeguard
enough, but they had gone scouring after him. And if they hadn't, how
could dogs help her with a man under the bed?

It was worse than any loss of money to have such a wretch as this so
near one, so shudderingly, so awfully near, to be so close as this to
the bottomless pit itself! What was she to do? Escape? The possibility
did not cross her mind. Not once did she think of letting Tom's money
go. All but annihilated by terror in that heartbeat, she herself was the
last thing she thought of.

Light and electricity are swift, but thought is swifter. As I said, this
was all in the fraction of a second. Then Mrs. Laughton was on her feet
again and before a pendulum could have more than swung backward. The man
must know she saw him. She took the light brass bedstead and sent it
rolling away from her with all her might and main leaving the creature
uncovered. He lay easily on one side, a stout little club like a
policeman's billy in his hand, some weapons gleaming in his belt,
putting up the other hand to grasp the bedstead as it rolled away.

"You look pretty, don't you?" said she.

Perhaps this was as much of a shock to the man as his appearance had
been to her. He was not acquainted with the saying that it is only the
unexpected that happens.

"Get up," said she. "I'd _be_ a man if I _was_ a man. Get up. I'm not
going to hurt you."

If the intruder had any sense of humor, this might have touched it; the
idea of this little fairy-queen of a woman, almost small enough to have
stepped out of a rain-lily, hurting him! But it was so different from
what he had been awaiting that it startled him; and then, perhaps, he
had some of the superstition that usually haunts the evil and ignorant,
and felt that such small women were uncanny. He was on his feet now,
towering over her.

"No," said he, gruffly; "I don't suppose you're going to hurt me. And
I'm not going to hurt you, if you hand over that money."

"What money?" opening her eyes with a wide sort of astonishment.

"Come! None of your lip. I want that money!"

"Why, I haven't any money! Oh, yes, I have, to be sure, but--"

"I thought you'd remember it," sa