lover's neck.

"That, dear," she told him, "isn't exactly my idea of loving. Whoever
fights you fights me as well. I am your mate. My brother has revealed
his monstrous malignity of nature today and to sleep one night more
under his roof would shrivel my soul. I'd rather walk the streets. I
accepted you without terms. Now I impose one condition. You must marry
me tonight. Take me away--make me anything but a Burton."

Edwardes pressed her close and neither of them for the moment spoke to
Hamilton or looked at him. "It can't be too soon," fervently declared
the lover.

"Do you suppose," inquired Hamilton Burton, his eyes narrowing until
they held a homicidal gleam, "that I shall permit you to leave my
house--with _him_?"

Mary laughed, then suddenly her voice rose fiercely, ignoring his
question. "You say, Hamilton, it is to be war. I shall start the
war--now. Jefferson, please find Len Haswell's telephone number. I'm
going to give him warning."

With an exclamation of incoherent fury Hamilton Burton leaped for the
telephone and tore it loose from its wires. He hurled the broken
instrument clattering to the floor and the directory into the flames.
Then he stood above the wreckage with his feet apart and his hands
clenching and unclenching in a panting picture of demoniac rage.

Mary laughed as one might laugh at the passion of a child. "After all
there are other telephones," she said, then added quietly: "You will
find in my rooms all the gifts you have loaded upon me. Unfortunately I
should have to go out of your house naked if I left behind me everything
that has come from you. Will you ring for my maid?"

For a moment the financier stood glaring and silent; then with a
powerful struggle for self-mastery he went over and touched a bell. "I
can't use physical force against my sister," he said. "You are of age,
and your own mistress, but if you make common cause with my enemies, you
become my enemy yourself."

When Harrow responded to the call, only the broken telephone bore
evidence of the violence of the past few minutes.

"Please ask Julie," instructed the girl quietly, "to pack a bag for me
and one for herself. I shall only need enough things for a day or two.
Ask her to hurry."

For several minutes the three stood without further speech, and when the
brother broke the silence it was in an altered tone.

"Mary," he said seriously, "your happiness is very dear to me. For
nothing else would I let any dif