"Some bean you've got, Maggie," he said admiringly. "Keep your foot on the gas pedal."

"What I did was only, the carrying-out of the plan you had decided on—of course carrying it out quicker, and with a few little changes that the urgent situation demanded. After he proposed I broke down, as per schedule, and confessed that I had deceived him to the extent that I was already married. Married to a man I didn't love, and who didn't love me, but who was a tight-wad and who wouldn't let me go unless he saw a lot of money in it for him. And I gave Dick all the rest of the story, just as we had doped it out."

"Great work, Maggie! How did he take it?"

"Exactly as we figured he would. He was sorry for me; it didn't make any difference at all in his feelings for me. He'd buy my husband off—give him any price he wanted—and just so I wouldn't have to feel myself bound to such a man a minute longer than necessary he'd make a bargain with him at once and pay him part of the money right down. To-night, if he could get in touch with my husband. And so, Barney, since we had to act quick and there was no time to bring in another man that I could pass off as my husband, I confessed to him that I was married to you."

"To me!" exclaimed Barney.

"And he's coming here in less than an hour, with real money in his pockets, to see if he can't fix a deal with you."

"Me!" exclaimed the startled Barney again. His beady eyes glowed at her ardently. "Gee, you know I wish I really was married to you, Maggie! If I was, you bet money couldn't ever pry you loose from me!"

"Well, there's the whole lay-out, Barney. It's up to you to be my grasping, bargaining, unloving husband for about an hour."

"I hadn't thought of myself in that part," he objected. "I'd figured that we'd bring in a new man to be the husband. It's pretty dangerous for me, my stringing Dick along all this while and then suddenly to enter the act as your husband—and to take the money."

"Dangerous!" There was sudden contempt in her voice and in her eyes. "So you're that kind of man, Barney—afraid! And afraid after my telling Dick you were my husband, and his swallowing the thing without a suspicion! Well, right this minute is when we call this deal off—and every other deal!"

"Oh, don't be so quick with that temper of yours, Maggie! I merely said it was dangerous. Of course I'll do it."

And then Barney asked, with a cunning he tried to hide: "But why did you ask me to have Old Jimmie show up here right after me? We don't need him."

"Just what's behind your saying that, Barney?" she demanded sharply.

He squirmed a little, then spoke the truth. "You don't love your father any too much, and he doesn't love you any too much—I know that. He needn't really know how much we take off Sherwood; if he wasn't here, he'd have to take our word for what we got and we'd tell him we got mighty little. Then the real money would be divided fifty-fifty between just you and me."

"I may not love my father, but he's in this on the same basis as you are, or I'm out of it," she declared. "I thought you might suggest something like this; that's one reason I asked you to have him come. Another reason—and this is something I forgot to tell you awhile ago—when I broke down and confessed everything to Dick Sherwood, I told Dick that Old Jimmie was really my guardian; and we both agreed that he should be present as a witness to any agreement, and to protect my interests. Still another reason is that since we had to work so fast, the thing to do was to split the money on the spot in three ways, and then each of us shoot off in a different direction to-night before any bad luck had a chance to break. In fact, Barney, this present minute is when you and I say our good-byes."

He forgot his scheme to defraud Old Jimmie in the far greater concern aroused by her last words. He leaned across the table and tried to take her hand, an attempt she deftly thwarted.

"But listen, Maggie," he asked with husky eagerness, "you and I are going to have an understanding to join up with each other soon, aren't we? You know what I mean—belong to each other. You know how I feel about: you!"

This was the principal point Maggie had been maneuvering toward. Before her was the most difficult scene of the many which she had planned, on her successful management of which the success of everything seemed to depend. Within she was palpitant with the strain and suspense of it all; but on Barney she held cool, appraising eyes. In this splendid composure, her momentary withdrawal from him, she seemed to Barney more beautiful, more desirable, more indispensable, than at any time since he had discovered back at the Duchess's that Maggie was a find.

"Of course I know exactly what you mean, Barney," she responded with deliberation, bewitchingly alluring in her air of superiority. "I've known for a long time you and I would have to have a real talk. Are you ready for a straight talk now?"

"As straight as you can talk it!"

"I'll probably fall for some man and marry him. Every woman does. But if I marry him, it'll be because I love him. But my marrying a man doesn't mean I'm going to go into business with him. I'm not going to mix love with business—not unless the man is the right sort of man. Of course it would be better if the man I marry and the man I take on as a business partner were the same man—but I'm not going to take any risks. You understand me so far."

"Surest thing you know. And every word you've said proves that your head isn't just something to look pretty with. Let me slip this over to you right at the start—I'm the right sort of man!"

"That's exactly what I want to find out," she continued, with her deliberation, with the air of sitting secure upon the highest level. "I know now what I can do. I've proved it. Now I'm going right ahead putting over big things. You once told me I had it in me to be the best ever—and I now know I can be. I know I've got to tie up with a man, and the man has got to be just as good in his way as I am in mine. Right there's where I'm in doubt about you. I said I was going to talk straight—and I'm handing it to you straight. I don't know how good you are."

"You mean you think I'm not big enough to work with you?"

"I mean exactly what I said. I said that I didn't really know how good you are, and that I wasn't going to tie up with any man except the best in the business. You've hinted now and then at a lot of big things you've put across and how strong you were in certain quarters where it paid to be strong—but I really know mighty little about you, Barney. This present job hasn't required you to do anything special, and all the really hard work I've done myself. Of course I know you are a good dancer, and clever with the ladies, and know how to pick up a sucker and string him along. But that's everything I do know. And, there are hundreds of men who are good at these things. The man I tie up with has got to be good at a lot of other things—and I've got to know he's good!"

"Good at what other things, Maggie?" he asked with suppressed eagerness.

"He's got to be good at putting over all kinds of situations. I don't care how he does it. So clever at putting things over that no one ever guesses he's the man who did it. And he's got to be able to give me protection. You know what I mean. A woman in the game I'm going in for is absolutely through, as far as doing anything big is concerned, the minute she gets a police record. I've got to have a man who's able to stand between me and the police. And I've got to know from past performances that the man can do these things. Just large words about what he can do, or hints about what he has done, don't count for a nickel with me. This is plain, hard business I'm talking, Barney, and I don't mean to hurt your feelings when I tell you that you don't measure up in any way to the man I need."

It had been difficult for Barney to hold himself until she had finished. To start with, he had the vain man's constant itch to tell of his exploits, his dislike for the anonymity of his cleverness unjustly ascribed to some other man. And then Maggie had played upon him even more skillfully than she imagined.

"I'm exactly the man you need in every way!" he exploded.

"Those are just words," she said evenly. "I said I had to have something more than mere words."

"I'm ace-high with Chief Barlow!"

"You've got to be more explicit."

Barney was now all excitement. "Don't you get what that means? I've never been locked up once, and yet I've been pulling stuff all the time! And yet look how Larry Brainard, that the bunch thought was so clever, got hooked and was sent away. I guess you know the answer!"

"Again, Barney, I've got to ask you to be more explicit."

"Then the answer is that all the while I've been working on an understanding with Barlow. I guess that's explicit!"

"You mean," she said in her cool voice, "that you've been a stool-pigeon for Barlow?"

"Sure!—though I don't like the word. That's the only safe way of staying steady in the game—an understanding with the police. All there is to it is now and then to tip the police off about some dub of a crook: of course you've got to be smooth enough not to let anyone guess your game."

"That doesn't seem to me such a strong talking point in your favor," she said thoughtfully.

"But don't you get the idea? I'm so strong with Barlow that I can get away with anything I want to. That means I can give you the protection from the police you just spoke about. See?"

"Yes I see." Again she spoke thoughtfully. "But I told you I had to be shown. You must have done some pretty big things to have got such a standing with Barlow. For example?"

"I could write you a book!" He laughed in his excited pride. "You ask for an example. I could hardly hold myself in awhile ago when you said you'd practically swung the present deal alone, and that I'd done almost nothing. Why, Maggie, I did just one smooth little thing without which there couldn't have been any deal."

"What?"

"You'll admit that nothing would have been safe with Larry Brainard determined to butt in on what you did?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm the little guy that fixed Larry Brainard so he wouldn't hurt anyone!"

"You did that?" For the first time Maggie showed what seemed to be a live interest. "How?"

"How? You'll say it was clever when you learn how. And you'll say that I'm the man you want on that count of being able to put over a situation so that no one will ever guess I'm the man who did it. You'll admit that putting Larry Brainard out of business, so he'd stay out, was certainly a stiff job—for though I don't like him, I admit that Larry is one wise bird. One thing I did was to suggest to Barlow that he force Larry to become a police stool. I knew Larry would refuse, and I figured out everything else exactly as it has happened. I ask you, wasn't that putting something clever over?"

"It certainly was clever!" admired Maggie.

"Wait! That's only half. To finish Larry off so that he wouldn't have a chance I had to finish him off not only with the cops, but also with his pals. So I tipped off Barlow to the game Red Hannigan and Jack Rosenfeldt were pulling and—"

"Then Larry Brainard really didn't do that?"

"No; I did it! Listen—there's some more to it. I spread the word, so that it seemed to be a leak from the Police Department, that it was Larry who had squealed on Red Hannigan and Jack Rosenfeldt. Did his old pals start out to get Larry? Well, now, did they! If I do say it myself, that was smooth work!"

"It was wonderful!" agreed Maggie.

"And there's still more, Maggie! You remember that charge of stick-up and attempted murder of a Chicago guy that the police are trying to land Larry on? I put that over! I'm the party that was messed up in that. I was trying to put over a neat little job all on my own; but something went wrong just as I thought I was cleaning out the sucker, and I had to be rough with that Chicago guy in order to make a get-away from him. I beat it straight to Barlow, and said that right here was the chance to fasten something on Larry. Barlow took my tip. My foot may have slipped on the original job, but my bean certainly did act quick, and you've got to admit I turned an apparent failure into something bigger than success would have been. And that's certainly traveling!"

"It certainly is!"

"And now, Maggie "—Barney pressed her eagerly—"I've shown you I'm just the sort you said a man had to be for you to tie up with him. I've shown you I can guarantee you police protection. And I've shown you I'm able to put over clever situations without any one ever guessing I'm the party who put 'em over. I fit all your specifications! How about our settling right now to join up some place—Toronto's the best bet—say three days after we make our get-away after to-night's clean-up? Let's be quick about this, Maggie—before Old Jimmie comes in. He's due any minute now!"

"Isn't that him at the door now?" breathed Maggie.

Both waited intently for a moment. But though she pretended so, Maggie's interest was not upon the outer door. Her attention was fixed, as it had been with sickening fear this last minute, upon that half-inch crack in the closet door behind Barney. Why had she, in her dismayed urgence, allowed Larry to possess himself of that closet key?—when her plan had been to keep Hannigan as well as Barlow forcibly behind the scenes until she had acted out her play? She now hoped almost against hope that Hannigan would not burst forth and ruin what was yet to come. Since that door unluckily had to be unlocked, her one chance was given her by the presence of Larry. Perhaps Larry could perceive the larger things she was striving for, and in some way restrain Hannigan.

These thoughts were but an instant in passing through her brain. Barney's eyes came back from the outer door to her face. "That's not Old Jimmie yet."

"No," her lips said. But her brain was saying, since the crack still remained a half-inch crack, "Larry understands—he's holding back Red Hannigan!"

Barney returned swiftly to his charge. "How about Toronto, Maggie—say exactly seventy-two hours from now—the Royal Brunswick Hotel?"

Maggie realized she could no longer put him off if she were to keep him unsuspicious for the next hour. Besides, in her desperate disillusionment concerning herself, she did not care what happened to her, or what people might think of her, if only she could keep this play going till its final moment.

"Yes," she said—"if we each feel the same way toward each other when this evening's ended."

"Maggie!" he cried. "Maggie!" This time, when he exultantly caught at her hand, she dared not refuse it to him. And she felt an additional loathing for Barney's caress because she knew that Larry was a witness to it.

Indeed, it was difficult for Larry, at the sight of Maggie's hand in Barney's too eager palms, to hold himself in check; and to do this in addition to holding in check the slight, quivering Red Hannigan, whose collar and whose right wrist he had been gripping these last three minutes. For Larry, as Maggie had hoped, had dimly apprehended something of Maggie's plan, and he felt himself bound by the promise she had extracted from him, to let her go through with whatever she had under way; though he had no conception of her plan's extent, and could, of course, not know of the intention of her overwrought mind to give her plan its final touch in what amounted to her own self-destruction, and in her vanishing utterly out of the knowledge of all who knew her.

Another minute passed; then Larry heard three peculiar rings of the bell of the outer door—an obvious signal. Maggie answered the summons, and Larry saw Old Jimmie enter. There followed a rapid and compact conference between the three, the substance of which was the telling of Old Jimmie of the developments against Dick Sherwood which Maggie had a little earlier recited to Barney, together with instructions to Old Jimmie concerning his new role as Maggie's guardian. It seemed to Larry that he caught signs of uneasiness in Jimmie, but to all the older man nodded his head.

Presently there was a loud ring. "That's Dick!" exclaimed Barney in a whisper. "And mighty eager, too—shows that by being ahead of the time you set! Let him in, Maggie."

Maggie was startled by the ring, though she did not show it. She thought rapidly. She had definitely asked Dick to telephone before coming. Why hadn't he telephoned? Perhaps something had happened to prevent it, or perhaps an idea had come to him by which their plan could be bettered without a telephone message. In either case, she and Dick might have to improvise and deftly catch cues tossed to each other, as experienced actors sometimes do without the audience ever knowing that a hiatus in the play has been skillfully covered.

Maggie stood up. "You both understand what you're to do?"

Both whispered "yes." Larry watched Maggie start across the room, his whole figure quivering with suspense as to what was going to happen when Dick entered. He was quite sure there was more here than appeared upon the surface, quite sure that Maggie did not intend that the business with Dick should work out as she had outlined. What could Maggie possibly be up to? he asked himself in feverish wonderment, and could find no answer. For of course Larry had no knowledge of that most important fact: that Maggie had actually made a confession to Dick—not the fraudulent confession she had told Barney of—but an honest and complete confession, and that in consequence she and Dick were working in cooperation.

From his crack Larry could not quite see the outer door. But after she opened the door he saw Maggie fall back with an inarticulate cry, her face suddenly blanched with astounded fright. And then Larry experienced one of the greatest surprises of his life—a surprise so unnerving that he almost loosed his hold upon Red Hannigan. For instead of Dick there walked into the room the tall, white-haired figure of Joe Ellison, and Joe's lean, prison-blanched face was aquiver with a devastating purpose. How in the name of God had Joe come to be here?—and what did that terrible look portend?

But Larry's surprise was but an unperturbing emotion compared to the effect of her father's appearance, with his terrible face, upon Maggie. Life seemed suddenly to go out of her. She realized that the clever play which she had constructed so rapidly, and upon which she had counted to clear the tangle for which she was in part responsible, and to bring her back in time as the seeming fulfillment of the dream of a happy and undisillusioned father—she realized that her poor, brilliant play had come to an instant end before it was fairly started, and that the control of events had passed into other hands.



CHAPTER XXXV

At the entrance of Joe Ellison instead of the expected Dick, Barney and Old Jimmie had sprung up from the table in amazement. Joe strode past Maggie, hardly heeding his daughter, and faced the two men.

"I guess you know me, Jimmie Carlisle!" said Joe with a terrifying restraint of tone. "The pal I trusted—the pal I turned everything over to—the pal who double-crossed me in every way!"

"Joe Ellison!" gasped Jimmie, suddenly as ghastly as a dead man. "I—I didn't know you were out."

"I'm out, all right. But I'll probably go in again for what I'm going to do to you! And you there"—turning on Barney—"you're got up enough like a professional dancer to be the Barney Palmer I've heard of!"

"What business is it of yours who I am?" Barney tried to bluster. "Perhaps you won't mind introducing yourself."

"I'm the man who's going to settle with you and Old Jimmie Carlisle! Is that introduction enough. If not, then I'm Joe Ellison, the father of this girl here you call Maggie Carlisle and Maggie Cameron, that you two have made into a crook."

"Your daughter!" exclaimed Barney in stupefaction. "Why, she's Jimmie Carlisle's—"

"He's always passed her off as such; that much I've learned. Speak up, Jimmie Carlisle! Whose daughter is this girl you've turned into a crook?"

"Your daughter, Joe," stammered Old Jimmie. "But about my making her into a crook—you're—you're all wrong there."

"So she's not a crook, and you didn't make her one?" demanded Joe with the calm of unexploded dynamite whose fuse is sputtering. "I left you about twelve or fifteen hundred a year to bring her up on—as a decent, respectable girl. That's twenty-five or thirty a week. If she's not a crook, how can she on twenty-five a week have all the swell clothes I've seen her in, and be living in a suite like this that costs from twenty-five to fifty a day? And if she isn't a crook, why is she mixed up with two such crooks as you? And if she isn't a crook, why is she in a game to trim young Dick Sherwood?"

The two men started and wilted at these driving questions. "But—but, Joe," stammered Old Jimmie, "you've gone out of your head. She's not in any such game. She never even heard of any Dick Sherwood."

"Cut out your lies, Jimmie Carlisle!" Joe ordered harshly. "We've got something more to do here, the four of us, than to waste any time on lies. And just to prove to you that your lies will be wasted, I'll lay all my cards face up on the table. Since I got out I've been working for the Sherwoods. Larry Brainard was working there before me, and got me my job. I've seen this girl here—my daughter that you've made into a crook—out there twice. Dick Sherwood was supposed to be in love with her. At the end of this afternoon some officers came to the Sherwoods' and arrested Larry Brainard. I was working outside, overheard what was happening, and crept up on the porch. Officer Gavegan, who was in charge, found a painting among Larry Brainard's things. Miss Sherwood said that it was a picture of Miss Maggie Cameron who had been visiting there, and I could see that it was. Officer Gavegan said it was a picture of Maggie Carlisle, daughter of Jimmie Carlisle, and that she was a crook. Larry Brainard, cornered, had to admit that Gavegan was right. I guessed at once who Maggie Carlisle was, since she was just the age my girl would have been and since you never had any children. And that's how, Jimmie Carlisle, standing there outside the window," concluded the terrible voice of Joe Ellison, "I learned for the first time that the baby I'd trusted with you to be brought up straight, and that I believed was now happy somewhere as a nice, decent girl, you had really brought up as your own daughter and trained to be a crook!"

Old Jimmie shrank back from Joe's blazing eyes; his mouth opened spasmodically, but no words came therefrom. There was stupendous silence in the room. Within the closet, Larry now understood that low, strange sound he had heard on the Sherwoods' porch and which Gavegan and Hunt had investigated. It had been the suppressed cry of Joe Ellison when he had learned the truth—the difference between his dreams and the reality. He could not imagine what that moment had been to Joe: the swift, unbelievable knowledge that had seemed to be tearing his very being apart.

Larry had an impulse to step out to Joe's side. But just as a little earlier he had felt the scene had belonged to Maggie, he now felt that this situation, the greatest in Joe's life, belonged definitely to Joe, was almost sacredly Joe's own property. Also he felt that he was about to learn many things which had puzzled him. Therefore he held himself back, at the same time keeping his hold upon Red Hannigan.

During this moment of silence, while Larry was wondering what was going to happen, his eyes also took in the figure of Maggie, all her powers of action and expression still paralyzed by appalling consternation. He understood, at least to a degree, what she was going through. He knew this much of her plan: that she had intended to cut loose in some way from Barney and Old Jimmie, and that she had intended that her father should continue to cherish the dream that had been his happiness for so long. And now her father had come upon her in the company of Barney and Old Jimmie and in a situation whose every superficial circumstance was such as to make him believe the worst of her!

Joe turned on the smartly dressed Barney. "I'll take you first, you imitation swell, because I'm saving Jimmie Carlisle to the last!" went on Joe's crunching voice. "I'm going to twist your damned neck for what you've helped do to my girl, but if you want to say anything first, say it."

Barney's response was a swift movement of his right hand toward his left armpit. But Barney Palmer, like almost all his kind, was a very indifferent gunman; and he had no knowledge of the reputation for masterful quickness that had been Joe Ellison's twenty years earlier. Before his compact automatic was fairly out of its holster beneath his armpit, it was in Joe Ellison's hands.

"I sized you up for that kind of rat and was watching you," continued Joe in his same awful grimness. "I'm not going to shoot you, unless you make me. I'm going to twist that pretty neck of yours. But first, out with anything you've got to say for yourself!"

"I haven't had anything to do with this business," said Barney, trying to affect a bold manner.

"You lie! I know that in this game against Dick Sherwood, in which you used my girl, you were the real leader!"

"Well—even if I did use your girl, I only used her the way I found her."

"You lie again! I know how your kind work: cleverly putting crooked ideas into girls' minds, and exciting their imagination, so they'll work with you. Your case is closed." He turned to his one-time friend. "What have you got to say for yourself, Jimmie Carlisle?"

Old Jimmie believed that his last hour was come. He showed something of the defiant, almost maniacal courage of a coward who realizes he can retreat no farther.

"What I got to say, Joe Ellison," he snarled in a sudden rage which bared his yellow teeth, "is that I'm even with you at last!"

"Even with me? What for?"

"For the way you double-crossed me in nineteen-one in that Gordon business. You never gave me a dime—said the thing had fallen down—yet I know there was a big haul!"

"I told you the truth. That Gordon thing was a fizzle."

"There's where you're lying! It was a clean-up! And I knew you'd been cheating me out of my share in other deals!"

"You're absolutely wrong, Jimmie Carlisle. But if you thought that, why didn't you have it out with me at the time?"

"Because I knew you would lie! You were a better talker than I was, and since our outfit always sided with you, I knew I wouldn't have a chance then. But I reasoned that if I kept quiet and kept on being your friend, I'd get my chance to get even if I waited awhile. I waited—and I certainly got my chance!"

"Go on, Jimmie Carlisle!"

And Old Jimmie went on—a startlingly different Old Jimmie, his pent-up evil now loosed into quivering, malignant triumph; went on with the feverish exultation of a twisted, perverted mind that has brooded long over an imagined injustice, that has brooded greedily and long in private over his revenge, and at last has his chance to gloat in the open.

"When you were sent away, Joe Ellison, and turned over your daughter to me with those orders about seeing that she was brought up as a decent girl, I began to see the big chance I'd been waiting for. I asked myself, What is the dearest thing in the world to Joe Ellison? The answer was, this idea he'd got about his girl. I asked myself, What is the biggest way I can get even with Joe Ellison? The answer was, to make Joe Ellison believe all the time he's in stir that his girl is growing up the way he wants her to be and yet to bring her up the exact thing he didn't want her to be. And that's exactly what I did!"

"You—did—such a thing?" breathed Joe Ellison, almost incredulous.

"That's exactly what I did!" Old Jimmie went on, gloatingly. "It was easy. No one knew you had a daughter, so I passed her off as my own baby by a marriage I'd not told any one about. I saw that she always lived among crooks, looked at things the way crooks do, and grew up with no other thought than to be a crook. I never had an idea of using her myself, till she began to look like such a good performer this last year; and then my idea, no matter what Barney Palmer may have planned, was to use her only in a couple of stunts. My main idea always was, when you came out with your grand idea of what your girl had grown up to be, for you suddenly to see your girl, and know her as your girl, and know her to be a crook. That smash to you was the big thing to me—what I'd planned for, and waited for. I didn't expect the blow-off to come like this; I didn't expect to be caught in it when it did happen. But since it has happened, well—There's your daughter, Joe Ellison! Look at her! Look at what I've made her! I guess I'm even all right!"

"My God!" breathed Joe Ellison, staring at the lean face twisting with triumphant malignancy. "I didn't think there could be such a man!"

He slowly turned upon Maggie. This was the first direct recognition he had taken of her since his entrance.

"I don't suppose you can guess what your being what you are has meant to me," he began in a numbed tone which grew accusingly harsh as he continued. "But I'd think that a daughter of mine, with such a mother, would have had more instinctive sense than to have gone into such a game with such a pair of crooks!"

"It's true—I have been what you think me—I did go into this thing against Dick Sherwood," Maggie responded in a voice that at first was faltering, then that stumbled rapidly on in her eagerness to pour out all the facts. "But—but Larry Brainard had kept after me—and finally he made me see how wrong I was headed. And then, this afternoon, before I spoke to you, Larry told me that you were my real father. When I learned the truth—how I had been cheated out of being something else—how I was the exact opposite of what you had wanted me to be and believed me to be—I felt about it almost exactly as you feel about it. I—I made up my mind to clear up at once all the wrong I was responsible for—and then disappear in such a way that you'd never have your dream of me spoiled. And so—and so this afternoon, after I left Cedar Crest, I confessed the whole truth to Dick Sherwood—about our plan to cheat him. And like the really splendid fellow he is, Dick Sherwood offered to help me set straight the things I wanted to set straight. Particularly to clear Larry Brainard. And so my being here as you find me is part of a plan between Dick Sherwood and myself. It's really a frame-up. A frame-up to catch Barney Palmer and Jimmie Carlisle."

"A frame-up!" ejaculated these two in startled unison.

"How a frame-up?" demanded her father, no bit of the accusing harshness gone out of his voice.

"Our plan against Dick Sherwood was to have him propose to me, then for me to confess that I was really married to a mean sort of man I didn't love—the idea being that Dick would be infatuated enough to pay a big sum to a dummy husband, and the three of us would disappear as soon as we got Dick's money. Dick offered to go through with the plan as Barney Palmer and Jimmie Carlisle had shaped it up—go through with it to-night—and then after money had passed, we'd have a criminal case against them. By reminding him that Larry Brainard knew just what we were up to, and might spoil everything if we didn't act at once, I got Barney Palmer worked up to the point where he was going to pose as my husband and take the money. Dick Sherwood was to come a little later, after he'd first telephoned me, with a big roll of marked money."

There were stuttered exclamations from Barney and Old Jimmie, which were cut off by the dominant incisiveness of Joe Ellison's words to his daughter:

"I think you're lying to me! Besides, even if you're telling the truth, it's a pretty way you've taken to clear things up! Don't you see that by letting Dick Sherwood come here and play such a part, you'd be dead sure to involve him and his family in a dirty police story that the papers of the whole country would play up as a sensation? It's plain to any one that that's no way a person who wanted to square things would use Dick Sherwood. And that's why I think you're lying!"

"I had thought of that—you're right," said Maggie. "And so I wasn't going to do it. He was going to telephone me—just about this time—and when he called up I was going to fake his message. I was going to tell Barney Palmer and Old Jimmie that Dick had just telephoned he wasn't coming, because one of the two had just sold him a tip for ten thousand dollars that this was a crooked game. I thought this would have started a quarrel between the two; they are suspicious of each other, anyhow. Each would have accused the other, and in their quarrel they would have been likely to have let out a lot of truth that would have completely given each other away."

"Not a bad plan at all," commented Joe Ellison. He tried to peer deep into his daughter for a moment, his inflamed face relaxing neither in its harshness nor its doubt of her. "But since you are the clever crook I actually know you to be from your work on Dick Sherwood, and since Jimmie Carlisle says he has trained you to be a crook, I believe that everything you've told me is just something you've cleverly invented on the spur of the moment—just so many lies."

"But—but—"

She broke off before the harsh, accusing doubt of his pale face. For a fraction of a moment no one spoke. Then the telephone bell began to ring.

"Dick!" breathed Maggie, and started for the telephone.

"Stay right where you are!" her father ordered. "I'll answer that telephone myself, and see whether you're lying to me about Dick Sherwood!... No, we'll do this together. I'll hold the receiver and hear what he says. You'll do the talking and you'll answer just what I tell you to, and you'll keep your hand tight over the mouthpiece while I'm giving you your orders. You two"—to Barney and Old Jimmie, with a significant movement of Barney's automatic—"you'd better behave while this telephone business is going on."

The next moment Larry was hearing, or rather witnessing, the strangest telephone conversation of his experience. Maggie was holding the transmitter, and Joe had the receiver at his ears, grimly covering the two men with the automatic. Maggie obediently kept her palm tight over the mouthpiece during Joe's brief whispered directions, and no one in the room except Joe, not even Maggie, had the slightest idea of what was really passing over the wires.

What Larry heard was no more than a dozen most commonplace words in the world, transformed into the most absorbing words in the language. Joe ordered Maggie to answer with "hello" in her usual tone, which she did, and Joe, after a startled expression at the first words that came over the wire, listened with immobile face for four or five seconds. Then he nodded imperatively to Maggie and she put her hand over the mouthpiece.

"Ask him how much, and when he wanted it to be paid," he ordered.

"How much, and when does he want it to be paid?" repeated Maggie.

Again Joe listened for several moments; and then ordered as before: "Say 'Yes.'"

"Yes," said Maggie.

Another period of waiting, and Joe ordered: "Say, 'I've got a much better plan that supersedes the old.'"

"I've got a much better plan that supersedes the old."

There was yet another period of waiting, then Joe commanded: "Tell him he really mustn't and say good-bye quick."

"You really mustn't! Good-bye!"

The instant her "Good-bye" was out of her mouth Joe clicked the receiver upon its hook, and stood regarding the breathless Maggie. His pale, stern face was not quite so severe as before. Presently he spoke: "I know now that you really were sick of what you'd been trying to do—that you'd really broken away from these two—that you'd really confessed to Dick, and are now all square with him."

The word "Father!" struggled chokingly toward her lips. But she only said:

"I'm glad—you know."

"And you were shrewd in that guess you made of what one of these two would do." Joe crossed back to Barney and Old Jimmie. "You two must have been almighty afraid, because of Larry Brainard, that your game was suddenly collapsing, and each must have been trying to grab a piece for himself before he ran away."

"What you talking about?" gruffly demanded Barney.

"Perhaps I'm talking about you. But more particularly about Jimmie Carlisle. For just now Dick Sherwood said when he telephoned, that an hour or two ago Jimmie Carlisle had hunted him up, had hinted that he was going to lose a lot of money unless he was properly advised, and offered to give him certain valuable information for five thousand cash."

Barney turned upon his partner. "You damned thief!" he snarled, tensed as if about to spring upon the other.

Old Jimmie, turned greenishly pale, shrank away from Barney, his every expression proclaiming his guilt. Then Maggie again found her voice:

"And at about the same time Barney was trying to double-cross Jimmie Carlisle, Barney proposed to me that, after we'd got Dick Sherwood's money, we'd tell Jimmie Carlisle we'd got very little, and divide the real money fifty-fifty between just us two."

"You damned thief!" snarled Old Jimmie back at his partner.

The next moment Barney and Old Jimmie were upon each other, striking wildly, clawing. But the moment after Joe Ellison, his repressed rage now unloosed, and with the super-strength of his supreme fury, had torn the two apart.

"You don't do that to each other—that job belongs to me!" he cried. His right arm flung Barney backward so that Barney went staggering over himself and sprawled upon the floor. Joe gripped Old Jimmie's collar, and his right hand painfully twisted Jimmie's arm. "And I finish you off first, Jimmie Carlisle, for what you've done to me and my girl! But for Larry Brainard you, Jimmie Carlisle, would have succeeded in your scheme to make my girl a crook! I'd like to give you a thousand years of agony, you damned rat—but that's beyond me!" His right hand shifted swiftly from Old Jimmie's arm to his throat. "But I'm going to choke your rat's life out of you!—your lying, sneaking devil's life out of you!"

Old Jimmie squirmed and twisted with those long fingers clamped mercilessly around his throat, his eyes rolling, and his mouth gaping with voiceless cries. He was indeed being shaken as a rat might be shaken.

"Don't!—Don't!" cried the frantic Maggie, and started to seize her father to pull him away. But she was halted by her arm being caught by Barney.

"Let Jimmie have it!" he said fiercely to her, and flung her to the farthest corner of the room. And grimly exultant over what seemed to be Old Jimmie's doom, he started for the door to make his own escape.

Up to the moment of Joe Ellison's eruption Larry had felt bound to remain a mere spectator where he was: long as the time had seemed to him, it had in fact been less than half an hour. He had felt bound at first by his promise to Maggie to let her work out her plan; and bound later by his sense that this situation belonged to Joe Ellison. But now this swift crisis dissolved all such obligations. He sprang from his closet to take his part in the drama that was so swiftly unfolding.



CHAPTER XXXVI

Larry caught and whirled around Barney Palmer just as the hand of the escaping Barney was on the knob of the outer door.

"No, you don't, Barney Palmer!" he cried. "You stay right here!"

Startled as Barney was by this appearance of his dearest enemy, he wasted no precious time on mere words. He swung a vicious blow at Larry, intended to remove this barrier to his freedom. But the experienced Larry let it glance off his forearm, and with the need of an instantaneous conclusion he sent a terrific right to Barney's chin. Barney staggered back, fell in a crumpled heap, and lay motionless.

Sparing only the fraction of a second to see that Barney was momentarily out of it, Larry sprang upon Joe Ellison and tried to break the deadly grips Joe held upon Old Jimmie.

"Stop, Joe—stop!" he cried peremptorily. "Your killing Jimmie Carlisle isn't going to help things!"

Without relaxing his holds, Joe turned upon this interferer.

"Larry Brainard! How'd you come in here?"

"I've been here all the time. But, Joe—don't kill Jimmie Carlisle!"

"You keep out—this is my business!" Joe fiercely replied. "If you've been here all the time, then you know what he's done to me, and what he's done to my girl! You know he deserves to have his neck twisted off—and I'm going to twist it off!"

Larry perceived that Joe's sense of tremendous injury had made him for the moment a madman in his rage. Only the most powerful appeal had a chance to bring him back to sanity.

"Listen, Joe—listen!" he cried desperately, straining to hold back the other's furious strength from its destructive purpose. "After what's happened, every one is bound to know that Maggie is your daughter! Understand that, Joe?—every one will know that Maggie is your daughter! It's not going to help you to be charged with murder. And think of this, Joe—what's it going to do to your daughter to have her father a murderer?"

"What's that?" Joe Ellison asked dazedly.

Larry saw that his point had penetrated to the other's reason. So he drove on, repeating what he had said.

"Understand this, Joe?—every one will now know that Maggie is your daughter! You simply can't prevent their knowing that now! Remember how for over fifteen years you've been trying to do the best you could for her! Do you now want to do the worst thing you can do? The worst thing you can do for Maggie is to make her father a murderer!"

"I guess that's right Larry," he said huskily. "Thanks."

He pushed the half-strangled Jimmie Carlisle away from him. "You'll get yours in some other way!" he said grimly.

Old Jimmie, staggering, caught the back of a chair for support. He tenderly felt his throat and blinked at Larry and Joe and Maggie. He did not try to say anything. In the meantime Barney had recovered consciousness, had struggled up, and was standing near Old Jimmie. Their recognition that they were sharers of defeat had served to restore something of the sense of alliance between the two.

"Well, anyhow, Larry Brainard," snarled Barney, "you haven't had anything to do with putting this across!"

It was Joe Ellison who replied. "Larry Brainard has had everything to do with putting this across. He's been beating you all the time from the very beginning, though you may not have known it. And though he's seemed to be out of things for the last few hours, he's been the actual power behind everything that's happened up to this minute. So don't fool yourself—Larry Brainard has beaten you out at every point!"

A sense of triumph glowed within Larry at this. There had been a time when he had wanted the animal satisfaction which would have come from his giving violent physical punishment to these two—particularly to Barney. But he had no desire now for such empty vengeance.

"Well, I guess you've got nothing on me," Barney growled at them, "so I'll be moving along. Better come, too, Jimmie."

While he spoke a figure had moved from Larry's closet with the silence of a swift shadow. It's thin hand gripped Barney's shoulder.

"I guess I've got something on you!" it said.

Barney whirled. "Red Hannigan!" he gasped.

"Yes, Red Hannigan!—you stool—you squealer!" said Red Hannigan. "I heard you brag about being Barlow's stool, and I heard everything else you bragged about to Joe Ellison's girl. I'd bump you off right now if I had my gat with me and if I had any chance at a get-away. But I'll be looking after you, and the gang will be looking after you, till you die—the same as you set us after Larry Brainard! No matter what else happens to you, you'll always have that as something extra waiting for you! And when the time comes, we'll get you!"

As silently as he had appeared from the closet, as silently he let himself out of the room. The glowering features of Barney had faded to a pasty white while Hannigan had spoken, and now the hand which tried to bring a handkerchief to his lips shook so that he could hardly find his face. For none knew so well as Barney Palmer how inescapable was this thing which would be hanging over him until the end of his days.

Before any one in the room could speak there came a loud pounding from within the door of the closet Larry and Red Hannigan had not occupied. "Oh, I'd completely forgotten!" exclaimed Maggie—and indeed she had forgotten all that was not immediately connected with the situation created by her father's unexpected entrance. She crossed and unlocked the door, and Barlow stepped out.

"Chief Barlow!" exclaimed the astonished Larry, and all the other men gazed at the Chief of Detectives with an equal surprise.

"He is part of my frame-up," Maggie explained at large. "I wanted both the police and Larry's old friends to know the truth at first hand—and clear him before I went away."

"Wasn't that Red Hannigan who just spoke?" were Barlow's first words.

"Yes," said Larry.

Barney, and Old Jimmie as well, had perked up at the appearance of Barlow, as though at aid which had come just in time. But Barlow turned upon Barney a cold police eye.

"I heard you brag that you were my stool. That's a lie."

"Why—why—Chief—" Barney stammered. He had counted upon help here, where there had existed mutually advantageous relations for so long.

"I heard you say you had my protection. That's another lie. You've squealed on a few people, but I've never given you a thing."

Barney gasped at this. He knew, as every one in the room also knew, that Barlow was lying. But Barlow held all the cards. Rough and ruthless police politician that he was, he made it his business always to hold the highest cards. As sick of soul as a man can be, Barney realized that Barlow was doing exactly what Barlow always did—was swinging to the side that had the most evidence and that would prove most advantageous to him. And Barney realized that he was suffering the appointed fate of all stool-pigeons who are found out by their fellow criminals to be stool-pigeons. Such informers are of no further use, and according to the police code they must be given punishment so severe as to dissipate any unhealthy belief on the public's part that there could ever have been any alliance between the two.

"I've used this young lady who seems to have been Jimmie Carlisle's daughter and now seems to be the daughter of this old-timer Joe Ellison, for a little private sleuthing on my own hook," Barlow went on—for it was the instinct of the man to claim the conception and leadership of any idea in whose development he had a part. He spoke in a brusque tone—as why should he not, since he was addressing an audience he lumped together as just so many crooks? "Through this little stunt I pulled to-night, I've got on to your curves, Barney Palmer. And yours, too, Jimmie Carlisle. And I'm going to run the pair of you in."

This was too much for Barney Palmer. Even though he knew that his position as a stool, who was known to be a stool, was without hope whatever, he went utterly to pieces.

"For God's sake, Chief," he burst out frantically, "you're not going to treat me like that! You could get me out of this easy! Think of all I've done for you! For God's sake, Chief—for God's sake—"

"Shut up!" ordered Barlow, doubling a big fist.

Chokingly Barney obeyed. Old Jimmie, coward though he was, and lacking entirely Barney's quality of a bravo, had accepted the situation with the twitching calm of one to whom the worst has often happened. "Shut up," repeated Barlow, "and get it fixed in your beans that I'm going to run you two in."

"Run them in because of this Sherwood affair?" asked Larry.

"Surest thing you know. I've got all the evidence I seed."

"But—" Larry was beginning protestingly, when the doorbell rang again. Maggie opened the door, and there entered Miss Sherwood, with Hunt just behind her, and Dick just behind him, and Casey and Gavegan following these three. All in the room were surprised at this invasion with the sole exception of Joe Ellison.

"When Mr. Dick spoke over the 'phone about your coming," he said to Miss Sherwood, "I asked you not to do it."

Barlow was prompt to speak, and the sudden change in his voice would have been amazing to those who do not know how the little great men of the Police Department, and other little great men, can alter their tones. He had recognized Miss Sherwood at once, as would any one else at all acquainted with influential New York.

"Miss Sherwood, I believe," he said, essaying a slight bow.

"Yes. Though I fear I have not the pleasure of knowing you."

"Deputy Barlow, head of the Detective Bureau of the Police Department," he informed her. "Entirely at your service."

"Just what is going on here?" she queried. "I know a part of what has happened"—she was addressing herself particularly to Maggie and Larry—"for Dick telephoned me about seven, and I came right into town. He told me everything he knew—which threw a different light on a lot of events—and Dick telephoned at about nine that I was coming over. But something more seems to have happened."

"Miss Sherwood, it's like—" began Barlow.

"Just a second, Chief," Larry interrupted. Larry knew what a sensational story this would be as it had developed—and he knew in advance just how it would be seized upon and played up by the newspapers. And Larry did not want unpleasant publicity for his friends (three in that room were trying to make a fresh start in life), nor for those who had been his friends. "Chief, do you want to make an arrest on a charge which will involve every person in this room in a sensational story? Of course I know most of us here don't weigh anything with you. But why drag Miss Sherwood, who is innocent in every way, into a criminal story that will serve to cheapen her and every decent person involved? Besides, it can only be a conspiracy charge, and there's more than a probability that you can't prove your case. So why make an arrest that will drag in Miss Sherwood?"

Barlow had a mind which functioned with amazing rapidity on matters pertaining to his own interest. He realized on the instant how it might count for him in the future if he were in a position to ask a favor of a person of Miss Sherwood's standing; and he spoke without hesitation:

"I don't know anything about this Sherwood matter. If anyone ever asks me, they'll not get a word."

There was swift relief on the faces of Barney and Old Jimmie; to be instantly dispelled by Chief Barlow's next statement which followed his last with only a pause for breath:

"The main thing we want is to stick these two crooks away." He turned on Barney and Old Jimmie. "I've just learned you two fellows are the birds I want for that Gregory stock business. I've got you for fair on that. It'll hold you a hundred times tighter than any conspiracy charge. Casey, Gavegan—hustle these two crooks out of here."

The next moment Casey and Gavegan had handcuffs on the prisoners and were leading them out.

"Good for you, Larry," Casey whispered warmly as he went by with Barney. "I knew you were going to win out, though it might be an extra-inning game!"

At the door Barlow paused. "I hope I've done everything all right, Miss Sherwood?"

"Yes—as far as I know, Mr. Barlow."

Again Barlow started out, and again turned. "And you, Brainard," he said, rather grudgingly, "I guess you needn't worry any about that charge against you. It'll be dropped."

And with that Barlow followed his men and his prisoners out of the room.

Then for a moment there was silence. As Larry saw and felt that moment, it was a moment so large that words would only make a faltering failure in trying to express it. He himself was suddenly free of all clouds and all dangers. He had succeeded in what he had been trying to do with Maggie. A father and a daughter were meeting, with each knowing their relationship, for the first time. There was so much to be said, among all of them, that could only be said as souls relaxed and got acquainted with each other.

It was so strained, so stupendous a moment that it would quickly have become awkward and anti-climacteric but for the tact of Miss Sherwood.

"Mr. Brainard," she began, in her smiling, direct manner, with a touch of brisk commonplace in it which helped relieve the tension, "I want to apologize to you for the way I treated you late this afternoon. As I said, I've just had a talk with Dick and he's told me everything—except some things we may all have to tell each other later. I was entirely in the wrong, and you were entirely in the right. And the way you've handled things seems to have given Dick just that shock which you said he needed to awaken him to be the man it's in him to be. I'm sure we all congratulate you."

She gave Larry no chance to respond. She knew the danger, in such an emotional crisis as this, of any let-up. So she went right on in her brisk tone of ingratiating authority.

"I guess we've all been through too much to talk. You are all coming right home with me. Mr. Brainard and Mr. Ellison live there, I'm their boss, and they've got to come. And you've got to come, Miss Ellison, if you don't want to offend me. I won't take 'no.' Besides, your place is near your father. Wear what you have on; in a half a minute you can put enough in a bag to last until to-morrow. To-morrow we'll send in for the rest of your things—whatever you want—and send a note to your Miss Grierson, paying her off. You and your father will have my car," she concluded, "Mr. Brainard and Dick will ride in Dick's car, and Mr. Hunt will take me."

And as she ordered, so was it.

For fifteen minutes—perhaps half an hour—after it rolled away from the Grantham Hotel there was absolute stillness in Miss Sherwood's limousine, which she had assigned to Maggie and her father. Maggie was near emotional collapse from what she had been through; and now she was sitting tight in one corner, away from the dark shadow in the other corner that was her newly discovered father who had cared for her so much that he had sought to erase from her mind all knowledge of his existence. She wanted to say something—do something; she was torn with a poignant hunger. But she was so filled with pulsing desires and fears that she was impotent to express any of the million things within her.

And so they rode on, dark shadows, almost half the width of the deeply cushioned seat between them. Thus they had ridden along Jackson Avenue, almost into Flushing, when the silence was broken by the first words of the journey. They were husky words, yearning and afraid of their own sound, and were spoken by Maggie's father.

"I—I don't know what to call you. Will—will Maggie do?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"I'm—I'm not much," the husky voice ventured on; "but what you said about going away—for my sake—do you think you need to do it?"

"I've made—such a mess of myself," she choked out.

"Other people were to blame," he said. "And out of it all, I think you're going to be what—what I dreamed you were. And—and—"

There was another stifling silence. "Yes?" she prompted.

"I wanted to keep out of your life—for your sake," he went on in his strained, suppressed voice. "But—but if you're not ashamed of me now that you know all"—in the darkness his groping hand closed upon hers—"I wish you wouldn't—go away from me, Maggie."

And then the surging, incoherent thing in her that bad been struggling to say itself this last half-hour, suddenly found its voice in a single word:

"Father!" she cried, and flung her arms around his neck.

"Maggie!" he sobbed, crushing her to him.

All the way to Cedar Crest they said not another word; just clung to each other in the darkness, sobbing—the first miraculous embrace of a father and daughter who had each found that which they had never expected to have.



CHAPTER XXXVII

It was ten the next morning at Cedar Crest, and Larry Brainard sat in his study mechanically going over his figures and plans for the Sherwood housing project.

For Larry the storms of the past few weeks, and the whirlwind of last night, had cleared away. There was quiet in the house, and through the open windows he could glimpse the broad lawn almost singing in its sun-gladdened greenness, and farther on he could glimpse the Sound gleaming placidly. Once for perhaps ten minutes he had seen the overalled and straw-hatted figure of Joe Ellison busy as usual among the flowers. He had strained his eyes for a glimpse of Maggie, but he had looked in vain.

Despite all that had come to pass at the Grantham the previous evening, Larry was just now feeling restless and rather forlorn. His breakfast had been brought to him in his room, and he had not seen a single member of last night's party at the Grantham since they had all divided up according to Miss Sherwood's orders and driven away; that is he had really seen no one except Dick.

Dick had gripped his hand when he had slipped in beside Dick in the low seat of the roadster. "You're all right, Captain Nemo!—only I'm going to be so brash as to call you Larry after this," Dick had said. "If you'll let me, you and I are going to be buddies."

He was all right, Dick was. Dick Sherwood was a thoroughbred.

And there was another matter which had pleased him. The Duchess had called him up that morning, had congratulated him in terms so brief that they sounded perfunctory, but which Larry realized had all his grandmother's heart in them, and had said she wanted him to take over the care of all her houses—those she had put up as bail for him. When could he come in to see her about this?... He understood this dusty-seeming, stooped, inarticulate grandmother of his as he had not before. Considering what her life had been, she also was a brick.

But notwithstanding all this, Larry was lonely—hungrily lonely—and was very much in doubt. Miss Sherwood had spoken to him fair enough the night before—yet he really did not know just how he stood with her. And then—Maggie. That was what meant most to him just now. True, Maggie had emerged safe through perils without and within; and to get her through to some such safety as now was hers had been his chief concern these many months. He wanted to see her, to speak to her. But he did not know what her attitude toward him would now be. He did not know how to go about finding her. He was not even certain where she had spent the night. He wanted to see her, yet was apulse with fear of seeing her. She would not be hostile, he knew that much; but she might not love him; and at the best a meeting would be awkward, with so wide a gap in their lives to be bridged....

He was brooding thus when there was a loud knocking at his door. Without waiting for his invitation to enter, the door was flung open, and Hunt strode in leaving the door wide behind him. His face was just one great, excited grin. He gave Larry a thump upon the back, which almost knocked Larry over, and then pulled him back to equilibrium by seizing a hand in both of his, and then almost shook it off.

"Larry, my son," exploded the big painter, "I've just done it! And I did it just as you ordered me to! Forgot that Miss Sherwood and I had had a falling out, and as per your orders I walked straight up to her and asked her. And Larry, you son-of-a-gun, you were right! She said 'yes'!"

"You're lucky, old man!" exclaimed Larry, warmly returning the painter's grip.

"And, Larry, that's not all. You told me I had the clearness of vision of a cold boiled lobster—said I was the greatest fool that ever had brains enough not to paint with the wrong end of an umbrella. Paid me some little compliment like that."

"Something like that," Larry agreed.

"Well, Larry, old son, you were right again! I've been a worse fool than all you said. Been blinder than one of those varnished skulls some tough-stomached people use for paper-weights. After she'd said 'yes' she gave me the inside story of why we had fallen out. And guess why it was?"

"You don't want me to guess. You want to tell me. So go to it."

"Larry, we men will never know how clever women really are!" Hunt shook his head with impressive emphasis. "Nor how they understand our natures—the clever women—nor how well they know how to handle us. She confessed that our quarrel was, on her part, carefully planned from the beginning with a definite result in view. She told me she'd always believed me a great painter, if I'd only break loose from the pretty things people wanted and paid me so much for. The trouble, as she saw it, was to get me to cut loose from so much easy money and devote myself entirely to real stuff. The only way she could see was for her to tell me I couldn't paint anything worth while, and tell it so straight-out as to make me believe that she believed it—and thus make me so mad that I'd chuck everything and go off to prove to her that I damned well could paint! I certainly got sore—I ducked out of sight, swearing I'd show her—and, oh, well, you know the rest! Tell me now, can you think of anything cleverer than the way she handled me?"

"It's just about what I would expect of Miss Sherwood," Larry commented.

"Excuse me," said a voice behind them. "I found the door open; may I come in?"

Both men turned quickly. Entering was Miss Sherwood.

"Isabel!" exclaimed the happy painter. "I was just telling Larry here—you know!"

Miss Sherwood's tone tried to be severe, and she tried not to smile—and she succeeded in being just herself.

"I came to talk business with Mr. Brainard. And I'm going to stay to talk business with Mr. Brainard. But I'll give him five seconds for congratulations—provided at the end of the five seconds Mr. Hunt gets out of the room."

Larry congratulated the two; congratulated them as warmly as he felt his as yet dubious position in this company warranted. At the end of the five seconds Hunt was closing the door upon his back.

"I've always loved him—and I want to thank you, Mr. Brainard," she said with her simple directness. And before Larry could make response of any kind, she shifted the subject.

"I really came in to see you on business, Mr. Brainard. I hope I made my attitude toward you clear enough last night. If I did not, let me say now that I think you have made good in every particular—and that I trust you in every particular. What I wished especially to say now," she went on briskly, giving Larry no chance to stammer out his appreciation, "is that I wish to go ahead without any delay with your proposition for developing the Sherwood properties in New York City which we discussed some time ago. A former objection you raised is now removed: you are cleared, and are free to work in the open. I want you to take charge of affairs, with Dick working beside you. I think it will be Dick's big chance. I've talked it over with him this morning, and he's eager for the arrangement. I hope you are not going to refuse the offer this time."

"I can't—not such an offer as that," Larry said huskily. "But, Miss Sherwood, I didn't expect—"

"Then it's settled," she interrupted with her brisk tone. "There'll be a lot of details, but we'll have plenty of time to talk them over later." She stood up. "There are some changes here at Cedar Crest which I want begun at once and which I want you to supervise. If you don't mind we'll look things over now."

He followed beside her along the curving, graveled walks. She headed toward the cliff, but he had no idea where she was leading until a sharp turn brought them almost upon the low cottage which these last few weeks had been Joe Ellison's home.

"Here is where we start our changes," said the business-like Miss Sherwood. "The door's open, so we might as well go right in."

They stepped into a tiny entry, and from thence into a little sitting-room. The room was filled with cut flowers, but Larry did not even see them. For as they entered, Maggie sprang up, startled, from a chair, and, whiter than she had been before in all her life, gazed at him as if she wanted to run away. She stood trembling and slender in a linen frock of most simple and graceful lines. It was Miss Sherwood's frock, though Larry did not know this; already it had been decided that all those showy Grantham gowns were never to be worn again.

Once more Miss Sherwood came to the rescue of a stupendous situation, just as her tact had rescued a situation too great for words the night before.

"Of course you two people now perceive that I'm a fraud—that I've got you together by base trickery. So much being admitted, let's proceed." She turned on Larry. "Maggie—we've agreed that I am to call her that—Maggie stayed with me last night. There are two beds in my room. But we didn't sleep much. Mostly we talked. If there's anything Maggie didn't tell me about herself, I can't guess what there's left to tell. According to herself, she's terrible. But that's for us to judge; personally I don't believe her. She confessed that she really loved you, but that after the way she'd treated you, of course she wasn't fit for you. Which, of course, is just a girl's nonsense. I suppose you, Mr. Brainard, are thinking something of the sort regarding your own self. It is equally nonsense. You both love each other—you've both been through a lot—nothing of importance now stands between you—so don't waste any of your too short lives in coming together."

She took a deep breath and went on. "You might as well know, Mr. Brainard, that Maggie is going to live with me for the present—that, of course, she is going to be a very great burden to me—and it will be a great favor to me if you'll marry her soon and take her off my hands." And then the voice that had tried to keep itself brisk and even, quavered with a sudden sob. "For Heaven's sake, dear children—don't be fools!"

And with that she was gone.

For an instant Larry continued to gaze at Maggie's slender, trembling figure. But something approaching a miracle—a very human miracle—had just happened. All those doubts, fears, indecisions, unexpressed desires, agonies of self-abasement, which might have delayed their understanding and happiness for weeks and months, had been swept into nothingness by the incisive kindliness of Miss Sherwood. In one minute she had said all they might have said in months; there was nothing more to say. There was nothing left of the past to discuss. Before them was only the fact of that immediate moment, and the future.

Tremblingly, silently, Larry crossed to that trembling, silent figure in white. She did not retreat. Tremblingly he took her hands and looked down into her dark eyes. They were now flowing tears, but they met his squarely, holding back nothing. The look in her eyes answered all he desired to know just then, for he gathered her tight into his arms. Wordlessly, but with a sharp, convulsive sob, she threw her arms about his neck—and thus embracing, shaken with sharp sobs, they stood while the minutes passed, not a single word having been spoken. And so it was that these two, both children of the storm, at last came together....

Presently Joe Ellison chanced to step unsuspectingly into the room. Seeing what he did, he silently tiptoed out. There was a garden chair just outside his door. Into this he sank and let his thin face fall into his hands. His figure shook and hot tears burned through his fingers. For his heart told him that his great dream was at last come true.

THE END