“I don’t know why I shouldn’t kill you both,” went on the half-crazed girl.  “That’d even the score.  Two Surtaines against two Neals, my mother and me.”

The light of slaying was in her eyes, as she stiffened her arm.  Just a fraction of an inch the arm swerved, for a streak of light was darting toward her.  Hal had taken the only chance.  He had flung his cane, whirling, in the hope of diverting her aim, and had followed it at a leap.

The two shots were almost instantaneous.  At the second, the quack reeled back against the wall.  The girl turned swiftly upon Hal, and as he seized her he felt the cold steel against his neck.  The touch seemed to paralyze him.  Strangely enough, the thought of death was summed up in a vast, regretful curiosity to know why all this was happening.  Then the weapon fell.

“I can’t kill you!” cried the girl, in a bursting sob, and fell, face down, upon the floor.

Hal, snatching up the revolver, ran to his father.

“I’m all right,” declared the quack.  “Only the shoulder.  Just winged.  Get me a drink from that decanter.”

His son obeyed.  With swift, careful hands he got the coat off the bulky-muscled arm, and saw, with a heart-lifting relief, that the bullet had hardly more than grazed the flesh.  Meantime the girl had crawled, still sobbing, to a chair.

“Did I kill him?” she asked, covering her eyes against what she might see.

“No,” said Hal.

“Listen,” commanded Dr. Surtaine.  “Some one’s coming.  Keep quiet.”  He walked steadily to the door and called out, “It’s nothing.  Just experimenting with a new pistol.  Go back to your bed.”

“Who was it?” asked Hal.

“The housekeeper.  There’s just one thing to do for the sake of all of us.  This has got to be hushed up.  I’m going out to telephone.  Don’t let her get away, Hal.”

“Get away!  Oh, my God!” breathed the girl.

Hal walked over to her, his heart wrung with pity.

“Why did you come here to kill my father, Milly?” he asked.

She stooped to pick up the “Happy Lady” clipping from the floor.

“That’s why,” she said.

“Good God!” said Hal.  “Have you been taking that—­those pills?”

“Taking ’em?  Yes, and believing in ’em, till I found out it was all damned lies.  And your fine and noble and honest ‘Clarion’ advertises the lies just as your fine and noble and honest father makes the pills.  They’re no good.  Do you get that?  And when I came here and told your father he’d got to help me out of my trouble, what do you think he told me?  That I’d lost my job at the factory!”

“Who is the man, Milly?”

“What business is that of yours?”

“I’ll go after him and see that he marries you if it takes—­”

“Oh, he’d be only too glad to marry me if he could.  He can’t.  Poor Max has got a wife somewhere—­”

“Max?  It’s Veltman!” cried Hal.  “The dirty scoundrel.”