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 I don't know where she is, or who she is, or what you are talking about. You're making a tremendous mistake, Mr. Morris. You are shooting an innocent man.

Ambrose, who thought he had conquered fear, was surprised to discover that his teeth were chattering. What he had said, moreover, did not appear to have made any effect on Abel Morris, as that one's jaw hardened perceptibly and shot out at a dangerous angle. Just here, however, Ambrose, his back to the outside screen-door, heard a familiar voice.

Why, Papa, Wilhelmina demanded, what are you doing with that revolver?

Entering the room, she walked straight over to Morris and removed the gun from his limp fingers. Unarmed, the poor fellow sank into an arm-chair and began to sob.

Ambrose, she adjured the playwright, get up at once out of that perfectly ridiculous attitude.

Suddenly relieved of the pressure of prospective gun-fire, Ambrose was only too happy to obey her. Rising from his knees, he sat down heavily on the bed, clinging with a kind of desperate intensity to one of the footposts.

I was only trying to save you, Georgiana, Abel Morris was explaining, save you from this fiend.