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REVENGE!
BY
ROBERT BARR
TO
JAMES SAMSON, M.D.
[Illustration: "I HAD THE SAFE BLOWN OPEN"]
CONTENTS.
AN ALPINE DIVORCEWHICH WAS THE MURDERER?A DYNAMITE EXPLOSIONAN ELECTRICAL SLIPTHE VENGEANCE OF THE DEADOVER THE STELVIO PASSTHE HOUR AND THE MAN"AND THE RIGOUR OF THE GAME"THE BROMLEY GIBBERTS STORYNOT ACCORDING TO THE CODEA MODERN SAMSONA DEAL ON 'CHANGETRANSFORMATIONTHE SHADOW OF THE GREENBACKTHE UNDERSTUDY"OUT OF THUN"A DRAMATIC POINTTWO FLORENTINE BALCONIESTHE EXPOSURE OF LORD STANSFORDPURIFICATION
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
"I HAD THE SAFE BLOWN OPEN"THE CORD DANGLED ABOUT A FOOT ABOVE THE POLICEMAN'S HEADDUPRÉ LAUNCHED HIS BOMB OUT INTO THE NIGHT"DO NOT PROCEED FURTHER WITH EXECUTION"HIS FIRST ACT WAS TO DISCHARGE EVERY SERVANT"WHEN YOU PRESS THE IVORY BUTTON, I FIRE"WIPING ITS BLADE ON THE CLOTHES OF THE PROSTRATE MAN"I WILL DRAW A PLAN"HE THREW ASIDE BUSHES, BRAMBLES AND LOGS"WHAT HAS HAPPENED?"SAM LOOKED SAVAGELY AROUND HIM"MY GOD, YOU WERE RIGHT AFTER ALL!"
REVENGE!
AN ALPINE DIVORCE.
In some natures there are no half-tones; nothing but raw primarycolours. John Bodman was a man who was always at one extreme or theother. This probably would have mattered little had he not married awife whose nature was an exact duplicate of his own.
Doubtless there exists in this world precisely the right woman for anygiven man to marry and vice versâ; but when you consider that ahuman being has the opportunity of being acquainted with only a fewhundred people, and out of the few hundred that there are but a dozenor less whom he knows intimately, and out of the dozen, one or twofriends at most, it will easily be seen, when we remember the number ofmillions who inhabit this world, that probably, since the earth wascreated, the right man has never yet met the right woman. Themathematical chances are all against such a meeting, and this is thereason that divorce courts exist. Marriage at best is but a compromise,and if two people happen to be united who are of an uncompromisingnature there is trouble.
In the lives of these two young people there was no middle distance.The result was bound to be either love or hate, and in the case of Mr.and Mrs. Bodman it was hate of the most bitter and arrogant kind.
In some parts of the world incompatibility of temper is considered ajust cause for obtaining a divorce, but in England no such subtledistinction is made, and so until the wife became criminal, or the manbecame both criminal and cruel, these two were linked together by abond that only death could sever. Nothing can be worse than this stateof things, and the matter was only made the more hopeless by the factthat Mrs. Bodman lived a blameless life, and her husband was no worse,but rather better, than the majority of men. Perhaps, however, thatstatement held only up to a certain point, for John Bodman had reacheda state of mind in which he resolved to get rid of his wife at allhazards. If he had been a poor man he would probably have deserted her,but he was rich, and a man cannot freely leave a prospering businessbecause his domestic life happens not