Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/342

 fasten those little devilish points on your Game chickens. I know now. I feel it throb in every nerve and muscle. The impulse to kill you is so simple and so sweet, it would be a crime against nature to deny it."

Overman threw his head to one side, frowned and peered at the man before him curiously.

"Do you ever get tired of preaching? The articulation of wind is a strange mania!"

"Pardon me if I've tired you," came the answer in mellow tones. "You'll need a long rest after to-night, and you'll get it."

Gordon locked the doors, placed the blower over the flickering embers in the grate, and put his hand on the electric switch.

"I am going to put this light out for the sake of the comradeship and chivalry we once held in common. I could kill you at one blow from that blind side of your head. I'll fight you fair. That is a bow to the higher law in the preliminary ritual of nature. But down below, in these muscles, throb forces older than the soul, that link us in kinship to the tiger and the wolf"—his voice sank to a dreamy monotone. "You sneaked into my home in the dark to rob me of my own. In the dark, we will settle on the price. I paid for this treasure an immortal soul. It's worth as much to you."

He turned the switch, and then darkness and silence that could be felt and tasted