Mahr’s face was gray; his hands trembled.  He looked at that moment as if the death the other threatened was already come upon him.  There was a moment of silence, intense, charged with the electricity of emotions—­a silence more sinister than the noise of battles.  Twice Mahr attempted to speak, but no sound came from his contracted throat.  Slowly he pulled himself together.  A look awful, inhuman, flashed over his convulsed features.  Words came at last, high, cackling and cracked, like the voice of senility.

“It’s you—­it’s you!” he quavered.  “So she told you everything, did she?  So you and she—­”

The sentence ended in a hoarse gasp, as Mahr launched himself at Gard with the spring of an animal goaded beyond endurance.

Gard was the larger man, and his wrath had been long demanding expression.  They closed with a jar that rocked the electric lamp on the desk.  There was a second of straining and uncertainty.  Then with a jerk Gard lifted his adversary clear off his feet, and shook him, shook him with the fury of a bulldog, and as relentlessly.  Then, as if the temptation to murder was more than he could longer resist, he flung him from him.

Mahr fell full length upon the heavy rug, limp and inert, yet conscious.

Gard stooped, picked up his hat and gloves from where they had fallen and turned upon his heel.

At that moment the outside door of the secretary’s office opened and closed, and footsteps sounded in the room beyond.

“Get up,” said Gard quietly, “unless you care to have them see you there.”

The sound had acted like magic upon the prostrate man.  He did not need the admonition.  He had already dragged his shaking body to an upright position, ere he slowly sank down into the embrace of one of the huge armchairs.

A quick knock was followed by the appearance of Teddy Mahr.  The room was in darkness save for the light on the table and the clustered radiance concentrated upon the glowing portrait, that had smiled down remote and serene upon the scene just enacted, as it had doubtless gazed upon many another as strange.

“Father!” exclaimed the boy, and as he came within the ring of light, his face showed pale and anxious.

Gard did not give him time for a reply.  “Good evening,” he said.  “I have been admiring the Vandyke.  A wonderful canvas, and one thing that your father may well be proud of.”

At the sound of the voice the young man turned and advanced with an exclamation of welcome.  “Mr. Gard, the very one I most wanted to see.  Tell me—­what is the matter?  Where has Dorothy gone?  I’ve been to the house, and either they don’t know or they won’t tell me.  She didn’t let me know.  I can’t understand it.  For heaven’s sake, tell me!  Nothing is wrong, is there?”

“Why, of course, you should know, Teddy.”  For the first time he used the familiar term.  “I quite forgot about you young people.  You see, Dorothy received threatening letters from some crank, and as we weren’t sure what might occur I sent her off. Mahr, shall I tell your son?”