He struck a match, relighted the candle, and faced Miss Spencer once more.
'I'll do it again,' she said, with a note of hard resolve.
'Oh, no, you won't, my girl,' said Racksole; and he pulled out his revolver, cocked it, raised his hand.
'Put down that plaything of yours,' he said firmly.
'No,' she answered.
'I shall shoot.' She pressed her lips together.
'I shall shoot,' he repeated.

'One--two--three.' Bang, bang! He had fired twice, purposely missing her.

Miss Spencer never blenched.

Racksole was tremendously surprised--and he would have been a thousandfold more surprised could he have contrasted her behaviour now with her abject terror on the previous evening when Nella had threatened her.
'You've got a bit of pluck,' he said, 'but it won't help you.

Why won't you let us pass ?' As a matter of fact, pluck was just what she had not, really; she had merely subordinated one terror to another.