A trace of annoyance stole into the voice of the fallen Napoleon.  It is disconcerting to be interrupted during one’s last moments of life.

“And with them,” he ironically questioned, “you mean to begin over and make an honest living?”

Haswell shook his head.  His tone took on, in its level pitch of implacability, a quality indescribably horrifying, “No—­an honest killing.  I am going to kill you.”

“That,” suggested Burton, “will not be necessary.  I am on the point of saving you the trouble—­and personal danger.  In my bag there is a note stating that fact—­and my reasons.”

Haswell held out a letter.  “I am not complaining about my ruin in the Street,” he patiently explained.  “I knew that game and took my chances along with the rest.  That isn’t what has been driving me mad.  I got this letter a week ago.”

Hamilton glanced at the envelope.

“From Loraine,” went on Len Haswell in a voice of even deadlier quiet.  The voice and chalky face seemed twin notes of sound and color.  “I wouldn’t care to tell you what happened to her—­after she pinned her faith on your promise to buy her freedom—­from me—­for your brother.  She lost out all around, you see.  I wouldn’t care to tell you about that—­and its consequences.  But something’s going to be paid on account—­here—­tonight.”

After a moment Burton said slowly: 

“I am through.  I’m just ending it.”

Once again the huge man shook his head.  A strange and bitter smile twisted his lips.

“No,” he persisted in that level intonation with which men sometimes speak from the scaffold.  “No, that won’t do.  You see I’ve whetted my appetite on anticipation—­ever since that letter came.  I must have the pleasure of killing you with my own hands; of seeing the breath go out of your throat—­afterward the suicide will be my own.”

To lay down one’s life of one’s own volition is one thing.  To permit another to take it in a fashion of his own arbitrary selection is quite another.  Hamilton Burton had never been submissive.  He meant to die as he had lived—­“captain of his soul,” and so he turned quietly toward the window ledge where he had laid the automatic pistol.  Perhaps some clairvoyant sense, loaned by the closeness of death, gave Haswell an intimation of the other’s intent.  He reached the window first—­at a bound—­and stood before it.  Then suddenly a hideous expression came into his eyes until out of them shone the horror-worship that had obsessed his soul; and the maniac’s cunning for draining his greed of vengeance to its dregs.

He had jostled aside the blank book containing the diary and seen the weapon, which he calmly slipped into his pocket.  Then he raised the window as far as it would go.

“This is the twentieth floor,” he commented with a ghastly significance.  “I know because I walked up.  I didn’t want to be stopped—­too soon.  It won’t take you so long to get down.”  As he spoke he jerked his head toward the raised blind and sash.  “It’s rather a symbolical finish for you, Burton—­you must confess as much—­an idol hurled down from his high place.”