And when I began to show the strain of the pace-they all show it more than the men--he cast me aside like a squeezed-out lemon." As she listened, Constance understood it all now.

It was to make Florence Gibbons a piece of property, a thing to be traded in, bartered--that was the idea.

Discover her--yes; but first to thrust her into the life if she would not go into it herself--anything to discredit her testimony beforehand, anything to save the precious reputation of one man.
"Well," shouted the other voice menacingly, "do you want to know the truth?
Haven't you read it often enough?
Instead of hoping you will return, they pray that you are DEAD!" He hissed the words out, then added, "They prefer to think that you are dead.

Why--damn it!--they turn to that belief for COMFORT!" Constance had seized Mrs.Palmer by the arm, and, acting in concert, they threw both their weights against the thin wooden door.
It yielded with a crash.
Inside the room was dark.
Indistinctly Constance could make out two figures, one standing, the other seated in a deep rocker.
A suppressed exclamation of surprise was followed by a hasty lunge of the standing figure toward her.
Constance reached quickly into her handbag and drew out the little ivory-handled pistol.
"Bang!" it spat almost into the man's face.
Choking, sputtering, the man groped a minute blindly, then fell on the floor and frantically tried to rise again and call out.
The words seemed to stick in his throat.
"You--you shot him ?" gasped a woman's voice which Constance now knew was Florence's.
"With the new German Secret Service gun," answered Constance quietly, keeping it leveled to cow any assistance that might be brought.

"It blinds and stupefies without killing--a bulletless revolver intended to check and render harmless the criminal instead of maiming him.