ubt that the German was about to
enter, to annihilate in his subtle manner an enemy he believed unarmed.

With his left hand he braced himself against the door-frame for the
stroke, while with his right hand he lifted the knife. The necessity of
striking without warning sickened him. He had no choice. There was too
much eager help within ear-shot of an alarm. The stakes loomed too
commandingly to tolerate a sentimental hesitation. It was not only his
own life in the scales. The lives of those who toiled at the furnaces
swayed with his. But it was from the recollection of Nora that he drew
the most strength, from the desire to see her again; to watch her quiet
figure--a little inscrutable, unconsciously provocative; to hover again
on the edge of an avowal, alert for his favorable moment.

The door hinges responded to a pressure. The lamp had evidently been
extinguished again, for he saw in the uncertain radiance of the embers a
thing, scarcely definable as human, prone beyond the threshold.

The empty doorway, the inert object on the floor, the darkness, accented
rather than diminished by the embers, blurred his calculations. Where
was the one who had opened and for whom his knife was eager?

Unexpectedly a brilliant light flashed in his eyes and went out.
Half-blinded, he sensed the presence of something on the sill, and he
struck downward with all his force. He reached only emptiness. The one
on the sill had sprung through. From somewhere in the house Garth heard
the patter of hastening feet.

He fought away the effects of the flash, striving to locate the one who
had entered. There beside the heap of rubbish knelt a form darker than
the white darkness.

He moved noiselessly over. He reached down and grasped the bent
shoulder, and, as the shoulder recoiled from his touch, so he recoiled
from its quality that revealed the presence in his prison of a woman.

Through his amazement he heard the door close, but he felt sure of
himself now. Mrs. Alden was his prisoner--a hostage, if he chose, for
his own escape, unless, indeed, she had finally revolted and come to his
aid.

"Get up," he said roughly.

The woman's sigh conveyed relief. Something scraped beneath her hand. A
tiny flame was born and entered into the base of the rubbish.

Then the woman turned slowly, and, in the light of the flame, Garth
looked into Nora's excited eyes and smiling face.

Incredulous, he grasped her arms, lifted her to her feet, and s