rheard in that moment when
she listened on the stairs, was his or not.... Come back this
afternoon, Mr. Hamilton, and I will give you full information and
instructions about that Long Bay errand. In the meantime, guard
yourself well from a possible attack, although I do not think another
attempt upon your life will be made so soon. Take this, and if you
have need of it, do not hesitate to use it. We can afford no
half-measures now. Shoot, and shoot to kill!"

He opened a lower drawer in his massive desk and, drawing from it a
business-like looking revolver of large caliber, presented it to the
lawyer. With a warm hand-clasp he dismissed him, and, going to the
telephone, called up Anita Lawton's home.

"I want you to attend carefully, Miss Lawton. I am speaking from my
office. A man will be here with me in a few minutes, and I shall seat
him close to the transmitter of my 'phone, leaving the receiver off
the hook. Please listen carefully to his voice. I only wish you to
hear a phrase or two, when I will hang up the receiver, and call you
up later. Try to concentrate with all your powers, and tell me
afterward if you have ever heard that voice until now; if it is the
voice of the man you did not see, who was in the library with your
father just before he died."

He heard her give a quick gasp, and then her voice came to him, low
and sweet and steady.

"I will listen carefully, Mr. Blaine, and do my best to tell you the
truth."

The detective pulled a large leather chair close to the telephone, and
Herbert Armstrong was ushered in.

The man was pitiful in appearance, but scarcely demented, as the
operative had described him. He was tall and shabbily clothed, gaunt
almost to the point of emaciation, but with no sign of dissipation.
His eyes, though sunken, were clear, and they gazed levelly with those
of the detective.

"Come in, Mr. Armstrong." Blaine waved genially toward the arm-chair.
"What can I do for you?"

The man did not offer to shake hands, but sank wearily into the chair
assigned him.

"Do? You can stop hounding me, Henry Blaine! You and Pennington Lawton
brought my tragedy upon me as surely as I brought it upon myself, and
now you will not leave me alone with my grief and ruin, to drag my
miserable life out to the end, but you or your men must dog my every
foot-step, spy upon me, hunt me down like a pack of wolves! And why?
Why?"

The man's voice had run its gamut, in the emotion which consumed h