t?" Karl demanded. "Why do you hover over me?
What do you want? Who sent you?"

"No one; I am here."

He again touched his forehead significantly and Karl shuddered. "I won't
do it; no, no, no! Do you hear? I won't," the boy cried hysterically. "I
have been her good friend for years--we have been good friends; we will
remain good friends. I don't want the found sovereign."

"But if it slips through your fingers," Millar cried. "Suppose another
man runs away with her."

"Who?" Karl demanded.

"Myself," Millar replied coolly.

"You!"

"To-night! This very night!" Millar cried, laughing satanically and
triumphantly. "To-night I shall play with her as I please. Oh, what joy!
What exquisite joy! For ten thousand years no lovelier mistress."

"What's that?" Karl cried, taking a step toward him.

"Mistress, I said--mistress! She will do whatever I wish--to-night, at
her home. You will see, when the lights are bright, when the air is
filled with perfume--before day dawns, you will see."

"Stop, stop!" Karl cried warningly.

"Be there and you will run after your lost sovereign," Millar went on
tauntingly. "Every minute you don't know where she is she is spending
with me. A carriage passes you with drawn blinds, and your heart stands
still. Who is in it? She and I. You see a couple turn the corner with
arms lovingly interlocked. Who was that? She and I--always she and I.
We sit in every carriage. We go around every corner. Always she and
I--always clinging to each other, always lovingly. The thought maddens
you. You run through the streets. A light is extinguished in some room,
high up in a house. Who is there? She and I. We stand at the window, arm
in arm, looking down into your maddened eyes, and we hold each other
closer, and we laugh at you."

"Stop, damn you, stop!" Karl cried, beside himself and trying to shut
out the terrible monotony of Millar's voice.

"We laugh at you, you fool," the fiend cried again hoarsely. "And her
laughter grows warmer and warmer until she laughs as only a woman can
laugh in the midst of delirious joy."

With a maddened scream of rage Karl reached the table with a bound and
snatched up the revolver. But Millar, with a spring as lithe and agile
as a cat, was there beside him, holding the arm with which he would have
shot down the man who was pouring insidious poison into his ears--into
his soul.

Millar smiled as he looked at the helpless boy before him. Karl
released the revolv