drip of Dutchy's spilled coffee on the floor. Dennin threw open
the breech of the shot-gun, ejecting the empty shells. Holding the
gun with one hand, he reached with the other into his pocket for
fresh shells.

He was thrusting the shells into the gun when Edith Nelson was
aroused to action. It was patent that he intended to kill Hans and
her. For a space of possibly three seconds of time she had been
dazed and paralysed by the horrible and inconceivable form in which
the unexpected had made its appearance. Then she rose to it and
grappled with it. She grappled with it concretely, making a cat-
like leap for the murderer and gripping his neck-cloth with both
her hands. The impact of her body sent him stumbling backward
several steps. He tried to shake her loose and still retain his
hold on the gun. This was awkward, for her firm-fleshed body had
become a cat's. She threw herself to one side, and with her grip
at his throat nearly jerked him to the floor. He straightened
himself and whirled swiftly. Still faithful to her hold, her body
followed the circle of his whirl so that her feet left the floor,
and she swung through the air fastened to his throat by her hands.
The whirl culminated in a collision with a chair, and the man and
woman crashed to the floor in a wild struggling fall that extended
itself across half the length of the room.

Hans Nelson was half a second behind his wife in rising to the
unexpected. His nerve processed and mental processes were slower
than hers. His was the grosser organism, and it had taken him half
a second longer to perceive, and determine, and proceed to do. She
had already flown at Dennin and gripped his throat, when Hans
sprang to his feet. But her coolness was not his. He was in a