between you and me, there is always this way out.'"

He lifted the pistol from the table, examining its
mechanism. He rose and walked across the room till he
stood with his back against the door, the pistol in his
hand, its barrel pointing straight at Marsden's heart.
Marsden never moved. Then as the two men faced one another
thus, looking into one another's eyes, their ears caught
a sound from behind the closed door of the inner room--a
sharp, hard, metallic sound as if some one in the room
within had raised the hammer of a pistol--a jewelled
pistol like the one in Dangerfield's hand.

And then--

A loud report, and with a cry, the cry of a woman, one
shrill despairing cry--

Or no, hang it--I can't consent to end up a story in that
fashion, with the dead woman prone across the bed, the
smoking pistol, with a jewel on the hilt, still clasped
in her hand--the red blood welling over the white laces
of her gown--while the two men gaze down upon her cold
face with horror in their eyes. Not a bit. Let's end it
like this:

"A shrill despairing cry--'Ed! Charlie! Come in here
quick! Hurry! The steam coil has blown out a plug! You
two boys quit talking and come in here, for heaven's
sake, and fix it.'" And, indeed, if the reader will look