in the white light; only one--her bedroom--showed a light behind the
lowered muslin blind. Her draped shadow once or twice passed across it.
He was turning away with soft steps and even bated breath when suddenly
he stopped. The exaggerated but unmistakable shadow of a man stood
beside her on the blind.

With a fierce leap as of a maniac, he was at the door, pounding,
rattling, and uttering hoarse and furious outcries. Even through his
fury he heard quickened footsteps--her light, reckless, half-hysterical
laugh--a bound upon the staircase--the hurried unbolting and opening of
distant doors, as the lighter one with which he was struggling at last
yielded to his blind rage, and threw him crashing into the sitting-room.
The back door was wide open. He could hear the rustling and crackling of
twigs and branches in different directions down the hillside, where the
fugitives had separated as they escaped. And yet he stood there for an
instant, dazed and wondering, "What next?"

His eyes fell upon McGee's rifle standing upright in the corner. It was
a clean, beautiful, precise weapon, even to the unprofessional eye,
its long, laminated hexagonal barrel taking a tenderer blue in the
moonlight. He snatched it up. It was capped and loaded. Without a pause
he dashed down the hill.

Only one thought was in his mind now--the crudest, simplest duty. He
was there in McGee's place; he should do what McGee would do. God had
abandoned him, but McGee's rifle remained.

In a few minutes' downward plunging he had reached the river bank. The
tranquil silver surface quivered and glittered before him. He saw what
he knew he would see, the black target of a man's head above it, making