The girl in the bathroom, who up to this time had remained quiet, began knocking at the door. "Johnnie!" she called.
Kincheloe started about and thrust the card and money into the pockets of his coat which was hanging over the back of a chair; then he went to a drawer for a bottle and drank half a tumbler of raw gin before he unlocked the bathroom door.
"What's the matter between you two?" the girl demanded.
"He thought," said Kincheloe, "he wouldn't come through with any more money; but he did."
"How much?" said the girl.
"Never mind; enough."
"Enough for what?"
"One hell of one good time to-night, Billie! Kiss me!—We're going to have a party; one hell of a party. Kiss me again, Billie—Say, you're all right—you—"
Thus Kincheloe began to disobey. Undoubtedly from the first day of realization of what he had done at Resurrection Rock, he never had believed he long would escape the consequences; he was, as Lucas said, a yellow canary not fit to be chosen for such service as he had performed. And Lucas, having any option, never would have chosen him; but there at St. Florentin he had been the ready instrument at hand. Yet how unfit a man to have killed another! A slayer—a murderer—must summon both courage and contempt for society to keep himself safe; and Kincheloe possessed neither. In his mind, the forces of American justice, instead of being pitifully bungling and stupid and letting the criminal go, became superhuman, inexorable powers; they caught a man sooner or later; and at every moment to the time of his capture, he was
