"Because I love you, Jacqueline," he cried, and now I heard an undertone of passion which I had not suspected in the man. "I am not a scoundrel, Jacqueline. Life is a hard game, and I have played it hard.

And I have loved you for a long time, but I would not tell you until I had the right as well as the power--but now my love is my law, and I will conquer you!"

He caught her in his arms. She uttered a little, gasping cry, and struggled wildly and ineffectually in his grasp.

I was quite cold, for I knew that was to be the last of his villainies.

I entered the room and walked up to the table, my pistol raised, aiming at his heart, and I felt my own heart beat steadily, and the will to kill rise dominant above every hesitation.

Leroux spun round. He saw me, and he smiled his sour smile. He did not flinch, although he must have seen that my hand was as steady as a rock. I could not withhold a certain admiration for the man, but this did not weaken me.

"What, you again, _monsieur_?" he asked mockingly. "You have come back? You are always coming back, aren't you?"

The truth of the diagnosis struck home to me. Yes, I was always coming back. But this time I had come back to stay.

"Can I do anything further for you, M. Hewlett?" he asked. "Was not your bed comfortable? Do you want something, or is it only habit that has brought you back here where nobody wants you?"

"I have come back to kill you, Leroux," I answered, and pulled the trigger six times.

And each time I heard nothing but the click of the hammer.

Then, with his bull's bellow, Simon was upon me, dashing his fists into my face, and bearing me down. My puny struggles were as ineffective as though I had been fighting ten men. He had me on the floor and was kneeling on my chest, and in a trice the other ruffians had come dashing along the hall.

Jacqueline was beating with her little fists upon Leroux's broad back, but he did not even feel the blows. I heard old Charles Duchaine's piping cries of fear, and then somebody held me by the throat, and I was swimming in black water.

"Bring a rope, Raoul!" I heard Simon call.

Half conscious, I knew that I was being tied. I felt the rope tighten upon my wrists and limbs; presently I opened my aching eyes to find myself trussed like a chicken to two legs of the table. I think it was Jean Petitjean who said something about shooting me, and was knocked down for it. Leroux was yelling like a demoniac. I saw Jacqueline's terrified face and the trembling old man; and presently Leroux was standing over me again, perfectly calm.

He had taken the pistol from my coat pocket and placed it on the table, and now he took it in his hand and held it under my eyes. The magazine was empty.

"Ah, Paul Hewlett, you are a very poor conspirator, indeed," he said, "to try to shoot a man without anything in your pistol. Do you remember how affectionately I put my arm round you when you were sitting in that chair writing your ridiculous check? It was then that I took the liberty of extracting the two cartridges. But I did think you would have had sense to examine your pistol and reload before you returned."

Jacqueline was clinging to him. "Monsieur," she panted, "you will spare his life? You will unfasten him and let him go?"

"But he keeps coming back," protested Leroux, wringing his hands in mock dismay.

"Spare him, _monsieur_, and God will bless you! You cannot kill him in cold blood," she cried.

"We will talk about that presently, my dear," he answered. "Go and sit down like a good child. I have something more to ask this gentleman before I make my decision."

He picked up a scrap of newspaper from the table and held it before my eyes, deliberately turning up the oil-lamp wick that I might read it.

I recognized it at once. It was the clipping from the newspaper, descriptive of the murdered man, which I had cut out in the train and placed in my pocketbook.

"You dropped this, my friend, when you pulled out your check-book,"

said Simon. "You are a very poor conspirator, Paul Hewlett. Assuredly I would not have you on my side at any price. Well?"

"Well?" I repeated mechanically.

"Who killed him?" he shouted.

He shook the paper before my eyes and then he struck me across the face with it.

"Who killed Louis d'Epernay?" he yelled, and Jacqueline screamed in fear.

"I did," I answered after a moment.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LITTLE DAGGER

Leroux staggered back against the wall and stood there, scowling like a devil. It was evident that my answer had been totally unexpected. I had never seen him under the influence of any overwhelming emotion, and I did not at the time understand the cause of his consternation.

Jacqueline was clinging to her father, and the old man looked from one to the other of us in bewilderment, and shook his white head and mumbled.

"Did you--know this, _madame_?" cried Leroux fiercely to Jacqueline.

"Yes," she replied.

"So this is why you pretended to have forgotten. You remembered everything?"

"Yes."

"You lied to shield yourself?"

"No, to shield him," she cried. "Because he was my only friend when I was helpless in a strange city. You did not steal my money, did you, Paul?" she added, turning swiftly upon me. "No, you have paid me. You were keeping it for me."

"You lie!" yelled Leroux, and he struck her across the mouth as he had struck me.

I writhed in my bonds. I pulled the heavy table after me as I tried impotently to crawl toward him, sending the wheel flying and all the papers whirling through the air. I cursed Leroux as blasphemously as he was cursing Jacqueline. I saw a trickle of blood on her cut lip, and the proud smile upon her face as she defied him.

And at the door was the pale face of Philippe Lacroix.

Leroux turned on me and kicked me savagely, and dragged the table to the far end of the room, and struck me repeatedly, while I struggled like a madman. The oaths and execrations that streamed from my lips seemed to be uttered by another man, for I heard them indifferently, or rather something that was I, deep in the maze of my personality, heard them--not that pitiful, puny, goaded thing that fought in its bonds until it ceased, panting and exhausted.

There followed a long silence, while Leroux strode furiously about the room. At last he stopped; he seemed to have made up his mind.

"I understand now," he said, nodding his head. "So you are the man who took this woman to the Merrimac. And then to your home, and Louis d'Epernay followed you there, and, naturally, you killed him. Well, it is intelligible. You were not acting for Carson after all, but were infatuated with this woman. Well--but----" He wheeled and turned to Jacqueline. "I will marry you still!"

She did not deign to answer him nor to wipe away the blood that trickled down her chin.

"Do you know why?" he bawled.

She raised her eyes indifferently to his. I saw that, though her spirit was unbroken, she was weary to death.

"Because you become part heir of the seigniory by your husband's death!" he shouted; and then he took Charles Duchaine by the arm and began shaking him violently.