got anything to say. Don't you like my selling
and putting you out of a job?"

"No, it's not that," refuted the Hibernian. "There are plenty of other
places I can get. I could stay right here for that matter if I wanted
to--but I don't. I wouldn't live in this house any longer if my pay were
doubled." As he spoke he had looked away. Now of a sudden his glance
returned. "I meant to quit anyway, whether you sold or not."

"Why so?" queried Craig, and unconsciously the scowl was repeated. "You
seemed glad enough to come."

"I was--then," shortly.

"And why not now? Talk up, if you've any grievance. Don't sit there like
a chimpanzee, hugging it."

"You know why well enough," ignored the other. He passed a knotty hand
through his shock of red whiskers absently. "I've expected the devil or
worse here every night these last weeks."

Craig tried to laugh; but the effort resulted in failure.

"God," he satirised, "who'd ever imagined you were the superstitious
sort! Weren't you ever in a place where anyone died before?"

"I never was where a woman and her child were murdered," deliberately.

Quick as thought Craig's red face whitened.

"Damn you, O'Reilly," he challenged, "you're free with your tongue." He
checked himself. "I don't wish to quarrel with you to-night, though," he
conciliated.

"Nor I with you," returned the other impassively. "I was merely telling
you the truth. Besides, it's none of my affair; and even if it were, I'm
thinking you'll pay for it dear enough before you're through."

Craig straightened in his seat; but not as before in attitude
supercilious.

"What the deuce do you mean, O'Reilly? You keep suggesting things, but
that is all. Talk plain if you know anything."

"I don't know anything," impassively; "unless it is that I wouldn't be
in your shoes if I got a dollar for every cent you've made out of this
cursed business."

Bit by bit Craig's face whitened. If anything the air of conciliation
augmented.

"You think circumstances weren't to blame?" he queried. "That, in other
words, I've brought things about as they are deliberately?"

"I don't think anything. I know what you've done--and what you've got to
answer for."

Instinctively, almost with a shudder, Craig glanced about him.

The shade of the single window was up, and of a sudden he arose
unsteadily and drew it over the blackness outside with a jerk.

"You're beastly hard on me," he commented, "but let that pass. It's
prob