But to kill a man!  To steal upon a man with cold intent in the blackness of the night—­and take his life!  To be a murderer!  To know the horror of blood forever upon one’s hands, to rise, cold-sweated, in the night, fearful of the very shadows around one, to live with every detail of that fearsome act sweeping like some dread spectre at unexpected moments upon the consciousness!  He put up his hands before his face, as though to blot out the thought from him.  Mind and soul recoiled before it—­to kill a man!

He walked on and on, until at last, conscious of a sense of fatigue, he stopped.  He must have come a long way, been walking a long time.  Where was he?  He looked about him for a moment in a dazed way—­and suddenly, with a low cry, shrank back.  As though he had been drawn to it by some ghastly magnet, he found himself standing in front of the LaSalle mansion, on Fifth Avenue.  No, no; it was not for that he had come—­to kill a man!  It was only—­only to get that money.  Yes—­he remembered now—­that money from the safe, before the Magpie got it.  The Magpie was to be there at three o’clock—­and the Tocsin was to be there, too.  The Tocsin!  That package!  He had failed!  It had been her one hope, and—­and it was gone.  What could he say to her?  How could he tell her the miserable truth?  But—­but he had not come there in the dead of night to kill a man, these other things were what had—­

“Jimmie!” It was a quick-breathed whisper.  A hand was on his arm.

He turned, startled.  It was the Tocsin—­Silver Mag.

“Jimmie!” in alarm.  “Why are you standing here like this?  You may be seen!”

Seen!  Suppose he were seen?  He shuddered a little.

“Yes; that’s so!” he said hoarsely.  He glanced numbly up and down the wide, deserted, but well-lighted, avenue.  It was no place, that most aristocratic section of the city, for such as Silver Mag and Larry the Bat to be seen at that hour of night, or, rather, morning.  And if anything happened inside that house!  “I—­I didn’t think of that,” he said mechanically.

“Come across the street—­under the stoop of that house there.”  She had his arm, and was half dragging him as she spoke, the alarm in her voice intensified.  And then, a moment later, safe from observation:  “Jimmie, Jimmie, what is the matter?  What has happened?  What makes you act so strangely?”

“Nothing,” he said.  “I—­”

“Tell me!” she insisted wildly.

And then, with a violent effort, Jimmie Dale forced his mind back to the immediate present.  He was only inspiring her with terror—­and there was the Magpie—­and that money in the safe!

“Where is the Magpie?” he asked, with quick apprehension.  “Am I late?  Is he in there already?”

“No,” she said.  “He hasn’t come yet.”

“What time is it?” he demanded anxiously.

“About half-past two,” she replied.  “But, Jimmie—­”