another, and waited their time until they could set him to his work.

McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this was
a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a fierce bloodhound
in leash. There were curs to do the smaller work; but some day he
would slip this creature upon its prey. A few members of the lodge, Ted
Baldwin among them, resented the rapid rise of the stranger and hated
him for it; but they kept clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as
to laugh.

But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter,
one which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it. Ettie
Shafter's father would have nothing more to do with him, nor would he
allow him to enter the house. Ettie herself was too deeply in love to
give him up altogether, and yet her own good sense warned her of what
would come from a marriage with a man who was regarded as a criminal.

One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him, possibly
for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him from those
evil influences which were sucking him down. She went to his house, as
he had often begged her to do, and made her way into the room which he
used as his sitting-room. He was seated at a table, with his back turned
and a letter in front of him. A sudden spirit of girlish mischief came
over her--she was still only nineteen. He had not heard her when she
pushed open the door. Now she tiptoed forward and laid her hand lightly
upon his bended shoulders.

If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but only in
turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he turned on her, and
his right hand was feeling for her throat. At the same instant with the
other hand he crumpled up the paper that lay before him. For an instant
he stood glaring. Then astonishment and joy took the place of the
ferocity which had convulsed his features--a ferocity which had sent
her shrinking back in horror as from something which had never before
intruded into her gentle life.

"It's you!" said he, mopping his brow. "And to think that you should
come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find nothing better to do
than to want to strangle you! Come then, darling," and he held out his
arms, "let me make it up to you."

But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear which
she had read in the man's face. All her woman's instinct told her that
it was not the mere