odd spasm crossed Guy's face. "Yes. You didn't let me into
that secret, did you, till I'd been weighed in the balances and
found wanting? You were too damned cautious to commit yourself.
And you've congratulated yourself on your marvellous discretion
ever since, I'll lay a wager. You hide-bound, self-righteous prigs
always do. Nothing would ever make you see that it's just your
beastly discretion that does the mischief,--your infernal,
complacent virtue that breeds the vice you so deplore!" He broke
into a harsh laugh that ended in a sharp catch of the breath that
bent him suddenly double.

Burke's hand went swiftly from his shoulder to his elbow. He led
him to a chair. "Sit down!" he said. "You've got beyond yourself.
I'm going to get you a drink, and then you'll go to bed."

Guy sat crumpled down in the chair like an empty sack. His head
was on his clenched hands. He swayed as if in pain.

Burke stood looking down at him for a moment or two. Then he
turned and went away, leaving the door ajar behind him.

When he came back, Guy was on his feet again, prowling uneasily up
and down, but he had not crossed the threshold. He gave him that
furtive, hunted look again as he entered.

"What dope is that? Not the genuine article I'll wager my soul!"

"It is the genuine article," Burke said. "Drink it, and go to bed!"

But Guy stood before him with his hands at his sides. The
smouldering fire in his eyes was leaping higher and higher.
"What's the game?" he said. "Is it a damned ruse to get me into
your power?"

Burke set down the glass he carried, and turned full upon him.
There was that about him that compelled the younger man to meet his
look. They stood face to face.

"You are in my power," he said with stern insistence. "I've borne
with you because I didn't want to use force. But--I can use force.
Don't forget that!"

Guy made a sharp movement--the movement of the trapped creature.
Beneath Burke's unsparing regard his eyes fell. In a moment he
turned aside, and muttering below his breath he took up the glass
on the table. For a second or two he stood staring at it, then
lifted it as if to drink, but in an instant changed his purpose and
with a snarling laugh swung back and flung glass and contents
straight at Burke's grim face.

What followed was of so swift and so deadly a nature as to possess
something of the quality of a whirlwind. Almost before the glass
lay in shivered fragments o