hat you lost everything.
So did I. We seem to be fellow-unfortunates."

"You say I lost everything." Haswell drew a step nearer and held out his
two mighty hands. "You are mistaken. I still have these."

A trace of annoyance stole into the voice of the fallen Napoleon. It is
disconcerting to be interrupted during one's last moments of life.

"And with them," he ironically questioned, "you mean to begin over and
make an honest living?"

Haswell shook his head. His tone took on, in its level pitch of
implacability, a quality indescribably horrifying, "No--an honest
killing. I am going to kill you."

"That," suggested Burton, "will not be necessary. I am on the point of
saving you the trouble--and personal danger. In my bag there is a note
stating that fact--and my reasons."

Haswell held out a letter. "I am not complaining about my ruin in the
Street," he patiently explained. "I knew that game and took my chances
along with the rest. That isn't what has been driving me mad. I got this
letter a week ago."

Hamilton glanced at the envelope.

"From Loraine," went on Len Haswell in a voice of even deadlier quiet.
The voice and chalky face seemed twin notes of sound and color. "I
wouldn't care to tell you what happened to her--after she pinned her
faith on your promise to buy her freedom--from me--for your brother. She
lost out all around, you see. I wouldn't care to tell you about
that--and its consequences. But something's going to be paid on
account--here--tonight."

After a moment Burton said slowly:

"I am through. I'm just ending it."

Once again the huge man shook his head. A strange and bitter smile
twisted his lips.

"No," he persisted in that level intonation with which men sometimes
speak from the scaffold. "No, that won't do. You see I've whetted my
appetite on anticipation--ever since that letter came. I must have the
pleasure of killing you with my own hands; of seeing the breath go out
of your throat--afterward the suicide will be my own."

To lay down one's life of one's own volition is one thing. To permit
another to take it in a fashion of his own arbitrary selection is quite
another. Hamilton Burton had never been submissive. He meant to die as
he had lived--"captain of his soul," and so he turned quietly toward the
window ledge where he had laid the automatic pistol. Perhaps some
clairvoyant sense, loaned by the closeness of death, gave Haswell an
intimation of the other's intent. He reache