Miss Sally's infinite dismay the others fell back and allowed these two
black figures to stand out, then to move towards each other with the
same terrible magnetism. They were so near she could not repeat her
warning to him without the others hearing it. And all hope died when
Corbin, turning deliberately towards her with a grave gesture in the
direction of Julia, said quietly:--

"Interduce me."

Miss Sally hesitated, and then gasped hastily, "Miss Jeffcourt."

"Yer don't say MY name. Tell her I'm Joseph Corbin of 'Frisco,
California, who killed her brother." He stopped and turned towards her.
"I came here to try and fix things again--and I've brought HIM."

In the wondering silence that ensued the others smiled vacantly,
breathlessly, and expectantly, until Corbin advanced and held out his
hand, when Julia Jeffcourt, drawing hers back to her bosom with the
palms outward, uttered an inarticulate cry and--and spat in his face!

With that act she found tongue--reviling him, the house that harbored
him, the insolence that presented him, the insult that had been put upon
her! "Are you men!" she added passionately, "who stand here with the
man before you that killed my brother, and see him offer me his filthy
villainous hand--and dare not strike him down!"

And they dared not. Violently, blindly, stupidly moved though all their
instincts, though they gathered hysterically around him, there was
something in his dull self-containment that was unassailable and awful.
For he wiped his face and breast with his handkerchief without a tremor,