He was a doomed man.

Yet he made one effort to save himself.

"Will you let me go if I surrender?" he asked.

"I will not."

Lena Vanhoosen held out her hands, which she had separated from the bonds that bound her.

"Save me! oh, save me!" she cried.

Maltravers hesitated a moment.

Then he leveled his pistol at Lena, as if his mind was fully made up.

"If I cannot have her, you shall never possess her!" he cried, savagely.

The next moment his pistol exploded, and Lena, the blood flowing from a wound in her breast, fell to the ground.