“If I could have Graham where you are now—­in that chair—­I’d give ten years of my life, Rossland.  I would kill him.  And you—­you—­”

He stepped back a pace, as if to put himself out of striking distance of the beast who was staring at him in amazement.

“What you have said about her should condemn you to death.  And I would kill you here, in this room, if it wasn’t necessary for you to take my message back to Graham.  Tell him that Mary Standish—­not Mary Graham—­is as pure and clean and as sweet as the day she was born.  Tell him that she belongs to me.  I love her.  She is mine—­do you understand?  And all the money in the world couldn’t buy one hair from her head.  I’m going to take her back to the States.  She is going to get a square deal, and the world is going to know her story.  She has nothing to conceal.  Absolutely nothing.  Tell that to John Graham for me.”

He advanced upon Rossland, who had risen from his chair; his hands were clenched, his face a mask of iron.

“Get out!  Go before I flay you within an inch of your rotten life!”

The energy which every fiber in him yearned to expend upon Rossland sent the table crashing back in an overturned wreck against the wall.

“Go—­before I kill you!”

He was advancing, even as the words of warning came from his lips, and the man before him, an awe-stricken mass of flesh that had forgotten power and courage in the face of a deadly and unexpected menace, backed quickly to the door and escaped.  He made for the corrals, and Alan watched from his door until he saw him departing southward, accompanied by two men who bore packs on their shoulders.  Not until then did Rossland gather his nerve sufficiently to stop and look back.  His breathless voice carried something unintelligible to Alan.  But he did not return for his coat and hat.

The reaction came to Alan when he saw the wreck he had made of the table.  Another moment or two and the devil in him would have been at work.  He hated Rossland.  He hated him now only a little less than he hated John Graham, and that he had let him go seemed a miracle to him.  He felt the strain he had been under.  But he was glad.  Some little god of common sense had overruled his passion, and he had acted wisely.  Graham would now get his message, and there could be no misunderstanding of purpose between them.

He was staring at the disordered papers on his desk when a movement at the door turned him about.  Mary Standish stood before him.

“You sent him away,” she cried softly.