"Sit down, do you hear me ?--or it will be worse for you! There!"-- the cold bore of a revolver barrel touched her temple and wrung a quaking gasp of terror from her--"Do you feel that?
Now you sit down and be quiet! If you make a single move, utter a single cry, I'll blow your brains out before you've half finished it.

Look here, do you know who you're dealing with now?
See!" His hand reached up and twitched away the fair beard and moustache; he bent forward so that the moonlight through the glass could fall on his face.

It had changed as his voice had now changed, and she saw that she was looking at the man who in those other days of stress and trial had posed as "Gaston Merode," brother to the fictitious "Countess de la Tour." "You!" she said in a bleak voice of desolation and fright.

"Dear heaven, that horrible Margot's confederate, the King of the Apaches!" "Yes!" he rapped out.

"You and that fellow Cleek came between us in one promising game, but I'm hanged if you shall do it in this one! I want this boy, and--I've got him.