rding to your own showing you are the one existing obstacle
between Florence Baker and myself. Is it not so?"

Like a condemned criminal, Sidwell felt the noose tightening.

"I can't deny it," he admitted.

For some seconds Ben Blair looked at him with an expression almost
menacing. When he again spoke the first trace of passion was in his
voice.

"Such being the case, Clarence Sidwell," he went on, "caring for
Florence Baker as I do, and knowing you as I do, why in God's name
should I leave you, coward, in possession of the dearest thing to me in
the world?" For an instant the voice paused, the protruding lower jaw
advanced until it became a positive disfigurement. "Tell me why I should
sacrifice my own happiness for yours. I have had enough of this
word-play. Speak!"

In every human life there is at some time a supreme moment, a tragic
climax of events; and Sidwell realized that for him this moment had
arrived. Moreover, it had found him helpless and unprepared. Artificial
to the bone, he was fundamentally disqualified to meet such an
emergency; for artifice or subterfuge would not serve him now. One hasty
glance into that relentless face caused him to turn his own away. Long
ago, in the West, he had once seen a rustler hung by a posse of
ranchers. The inexorable expression he remembered on the surrounding
faces was mirrored in Ben Blair's. His brain whirled; he could not
think. His hand passed aimlessly over his face; he started to speak, but
his voice failed him.

Ben Blair shifted forward in his seat. The long sinewy fingers gripped
the chair like a panther ready to spring.

"I am listening," he admonished.

Sidwell felt the air of the room grow stifling. A big clock was ticking
on the wall, and it seemed to him the second-beats were minutes apart.
His downcast eyes just caught the shape of the hands opposite him, and
in fancy he felt them already tightening upon his throat. Like a
drowning man, scenes in his past life swarmed through his brain. He saw
his mother, his sisters, at home in the old family mansion; his friends
at the club, chatting, laughing, drinking, smoking. In an impersonal
sort of way he wondered how they would feel, what they would say, when
they heard. On the vision swept. It was Florence Baker he saw
now--Florence, all in fleecy white; the girl and himself were on the
broad veranda of the Baker home. They were not alone. Another
figure--yes, this same menacing figure now so near--was