"Dan," I exclaimed, steady voiced, "Dan!"
"Who the devil are you?" sharply.
"Norman Hayne, and I want to talk with you. I know where you spend nearly every evening."
Dan whipped out his pistol and uttered an oath. "You've been spying on me, and it's the last time you'll spy on anybody, you mean sneak."
I put up my hand. We were facing each other, and we were both of a height. My heart was unprotected.
"See here, Dan," I said calmly, "you could shoot me and my dead body might be found in the morning. That is not all. Before noon Chicago would know the name of the murderer and his connection with the woman down there. If you are willing to yield up your life and draw down obloquy on the woman you have just left, then shoot."
Dan still held the pistol.
"That devil of a Gaynor put you on the track, curse him," in a vengeful tone.
"No, I do not think he suspects such a thing. He imagines you at the hotel talking business and playing cards, and he is proud that you come home sober. It is from this neighborhood the report has spread. You have taken her out driving. Your true wife that you must have cared for when you married owns your fealty. I do not need to read you a lecture, you know what you are doing and the end will be a scandal that will not raise you in any one's estimation and break her heart. It will also drag down the other woman."
"A miserable puling, white-livered thing who has no heart to break, who cares nothing for love, could not understand it!" he flung out.