Willa, meantime, had plowed her way through the slush in the Park on her early morning canter, and surrendered herself listlessly to the hands of her hair-dresser. A morning musicale, a luncheon, four teas, a dinner, opera and a dance formed the program of the day before her and she quailed in spirit. The novelty of the first few weeks following her initial dinner party had worn off, and greater ease and familiarity with the social round brought with it only an added restlessness and contempt.

There had been no clash, of late, between her will and that of the wary Mrs. Halstead, but the latter watched her every move with argus eyes and directed each detail of the day so implacably that Willa had followed the line of least resistance, save in one particular: she still slipped away at odd moments and left no trail.

Mrs. Halstead was therefore suspicious when, after the luncheon, Willa pleaded a headache, and announced flatly that she would take a siesta in lieu of attending the receptions.

"But, my dear, surely you will make an effort to put in an appearance, at least at the Allardyce's. I am particularly anxious that you make an impression there; they are most exclusive, and if they take you up your position is assured. You cannot afford to miss this opportunity."

"Oh, yes, I can." The smooth, dominant voice roused Willa swiftly to white heat. "I haven't seen anything about this outfit yet that comes too high for Grandfather Murdaugh's money."

It was the first cynical remark that had ever fallen from the girl's lips, but she was learning fast, and Mrs. Halstead recognized the storm signals and withdrew.

In the hall, she encountered Willa's maid, a bright-eyed, hard-featured Frenchwoman.

"Liane, if Mademoiselle goes out before I return, you know what to do?"

"Bien, Madame, pairfectly." The woman smiled quietly, and, turning, reentered her mistress' room.

"Go away, Liane. I'm going to try to rest. No, don't pull the curtains, I want the air. You may call me at six."

Willa waited half an hour, then, dressing quickly in plain, dark clothing, she slipped from the house.

A taxi' stand was two blocks away on the Avenue, and as Willa stepped into the first cab, a taller, portlier figure entered the second, and followed slowly but persistently through the maze of traffic. The girl glanced from the window at the back to make sure of her espionage, then took up the speaking-tube.

"Never mind that address I gave you. Drive into the Park, to where you can find a sharp turn in the road; get around it as fast as the law will let you and then stop, but keep your engine going. There's a good tip in it for you if you obey instructions."

"Right, Miss."

The car swerved into the Park entrance, and Willa sat back with a peculiar light in her eyes. When it stopped abruptly she sprang out, and, walking rapidly back to the turn in the driveway, waited beside a screening clump of shrubbery.

In a moment the second taxi' hummed about the corner. The girl stepped forward with her arm thrown up and the chauffeur, bewildered, brought his car to a stop with a grinding jar of the brakes. In a moment Willa had the door open.

"Get out, Liane," she commanded briefly, and with one look at her blazing eyes the woman meekly obeyed. Willa turned to the chauffeur. "How much does your meter register? Take it out of this, keep the rest for yourself and go. Your fare will not need you any longer."

The man hesitated, but his late passenger made no move, and the proffered banknote was a tempting one. He took it and went.

When the humming of his engine had died away Willa addressed herself to the cowering maid.

"You can walk back now, and tell your employer that you have failed. Tell her, too, that your services are no longer required, and mind you stay only long enough to pack your things, for if I find you there on my return, I'll show you what we do to spies where I come from!"

"But, Mademoiselle, I was obeying my instructions!" The maid gesticulated vehemently. "Madame commanded that I follow and observe who is at the rendez-vous. If Mademoiselle will be calm and tranquil we may come to an understanding, is it not so? I would prefer to be wholly in the service of Mademoiselle, and we might together arrange a little story for Madame——"

"Sell her out, would you, you treacherous Jane!" The old vernacular returned unbidden to Willa's lips. "You'd play both ways from the ace and take in the look-out? If I had you down in Mexico I'd shoot you full of holes! You heard me! If I find you at the house when I get back, look out for your wretched skin!"

She sprang into her own taxi with a swift word to the chauffeur and bowled away, leaving her erstwhile guard wringing her hands in the road.

At the gate of the neat little frame house far up on the Parkway, her driver hesitated.

"Excuse me, Miss, but it's only fair to tell you this car can be traced here from the stand. I wouldn't double-cross you, but if the police get after me I'll have to come through."

Willa smiled and then her face grew thoughtful.

"This isn't a matter for the police. You look like a white man. What's your job worth to you a week?"

"Anywhere from fifty to seventy-five; depends on the fares I get," the chauffeur returned promptly.

"I think I can use you. What is your name?"

"Daniel Morrissey, Miss."

"I'm Willa Murdaugh." She gave no heed to the man's respectful stare. "I'll give you a hundred a week flat. You throw up your job, meet me to-morrow at the Circle at ten in the morning and we'll go and buy a good car, light and strong and fast. Can you drive a racer?"

"Anything on wheels but a locomotive!"

"All right. I'll pay you for six months, whether I use you that long or not, and make you a present of the car when I'm through with you. Is it a go, Dan?"

Then ensued the spectacle of Miss Willa Murdaugh, most important debutante of the season, and Daniel Morrissey, chauffeur, binding the bargain with a solemn handshake.

While her new ally waited, she mounted the steps of the porch and rang the bell. Hurried footsteps thumped along the hall within, and a weazened, hunch backed lad smiled eagerly in the doorway.

"Greeting to thee, Jose." Willa spoke in soft, liquid Spanish. "I have come to tell thee that we are safe here no longer. We must seek another casa this very day."

Dinner-time came and passed, and the Halstead family sat in strained silence, their engagements forgotten in the new anxiety which enshrouded them. Mason North, hastily summoned to the conference, paced the floor restlessly.

"It was a mistake, Irene!" he said at last. "If you had told me I would never have sanctioned it. You can't treat a girl of Willa's type that way."

"But something had to be done!" Mrs. Halstead cried. "You and Ripley were both powerless to combat her, and we must know what scandal these mysterious errands of hers are likely to portend. This is what comes of putting a beggar on horseback!"

"And there is nothing to prevent her riding straight back to Mexico, renouncing the inheritance and daring us to go after her!" the lawyer retorted. "Where would your share of your uncle's estate go then, my dear Irene? The girl's never been too keen on this proposition, anyhow, as I've tried to make you realize; drive her too hard, and she'll throw the whole thing to the four winds."

"I'll master her yet." Mrs. Halstead spoke through set teeth. "No insolent chit of a girl can defy me! The conditions of the will give me a certain amount of authority and I shall exercise it to the limit. Willa must be controlled."

"Then play fair!" A voice sounded from the doorway, and Willa herself looked in on them. "Don't set your servants to spy on me and try to interfere with affairs which are my concern alone."

"My dear child! What a frightful hour you have given us!" Mason North wrung her hand in hearty relief. "Come in and sit down, and we will talk it all over. We are willing to admit that an injustice has been done you, but we must clear the air once and for all."

Willa complied.

"I think it is about time for an understanding," she said. "I don't want any admissions or recriminations, and I don't intend to submit to a lot of questions. Let's get right down to business. Do you want to start?"

The lawyer hesitated, taken aback by her cool, matter-of-fact manner. It bore no trace of insolence, yet conveyed a serene poise and grasp of the situation which was disconcerting.

"No, Willa." It was Ripley Halstead who replied mildly. The two younger Halsteads merely stared. "Tell us just what is on your mind. I want you to be happy here; that is the first consideration."

"I'm not thinking about that just now." Willa's calm, direct gaze moved from one to the other of them. "I'm going to speak plainly; it's the best thing for all of us. This thing is a business proposition, pure and simple. If it were not for the terms of Grandfather Murdaugh's will no one would ever have tried to find me; no one made the least attempt to help my father and mother, on even see that they were given a fair chance to help themselves. I'm not unmindful of the kindness you've all shown me here, however. Cousin Irene has been very conscientious in trying to make a lady of me, but that was a part of her bargain, wasn't it?"

Mrs. Halstead glared, but made no comment, and after a moment the girl went on wistfully:

"Of course, if we could have grown fond of each other it would have made things easier, but I'm so different from you-all that I guess you couldn't really like me. It looks to me as if we were all sort of in partnership to carry out the terms of Grandfather's will, and whether we like each other or not we've got to stick or get out of the game. Whether we're civil to each other or not, too, depends on our own decency, I expect, but we've got to play square."

She paused, and the lawyer remarked:

"We are all ready to, my dear Willa. We are only trying to safeguard your interests, and yourself. You are very young and unsophisticated and you know nothing of the city. We feel that you should be frank with us and tell us where it is that you go by yourself and what errand takes you. What are we to think if you do not explain?"

"I don't know," Willa replied simply. "Partners trust each other, don't they?"

Ripley Halstead smiled.

"Not always, Willa. But in this case we do not distrust your good intent, only your impulsiveness and inexperience. We really need not have made a family matter of this; do you wish to speak to your Cousin Irene alone, or to Mr. North and me?"

Willa opened wide eyes.

"Why should I? I have nothing to tell anyone. I suppose I seem awfully young and foolish to you, but I'm not afraid New York has much danger for me; I've taken care of myself in all sorts of situations, among the roughest hombres that ever crossed the border. You must trust me now. I am not doing anything wrong, I give you my word; anything that would create scandal in the way Cousin Irene fears. It's just an affair of my own, that started before I ever knew I was Willa Murdaugh; it's a kind of a trust laid on me, and I must fulfill it alone."

There was a ring in her tones that was almost solemn, and as the lawyer looked into her clear, young face his former vague hypothesis that his ward was being blackmailed faded forever from his mind. Whatever the situation confronting her might be, she was the prime mover and the initiative was hers. What strange motive could lurk behind her calm surety and singleness of purpose?

"I can tell you where she goes, if you want to know!"

Angie said suddenly and turned with a mendacious inspiration on her brother. "So could Vernie. He saw her! It's to a little frame cottage away up on the Parkway."

"I saw her!" ejaculated Vernon, glowering at her. "I like that! I never said anything of the kind, and it isn't true, anyway!"

"What does it matter?" Willa asked wearily. "I will not be shamed by being spied upon by servants. Am I to be trusted on my word of honor that I am doing nothing wrong, or shall I go away?"

"Certainly not, my dear girl." Ripley Halstead rose and held out his hand. "I'll apologize, if my wife does not, for the trick that was attempted to-day. We will trust you absolutely, but I should like to have your assurance that if you find yourself in any difficulty you will come to either Mr. North or me."

"I'll gladly promise that." Willa turned hesitatingly toward Mrs. Halstead. "I am really very sorry if I have been insolent, but Liane's behavior this afternoon aroused all my fighting blood."

Mrs. Halstead kissed her coldly.

"I hope you realize that I thought I was doing only my duty. There is one question I must ask you, though, and since you refuse to discuss this with me privately you must take the consequences. In justice to yourself I will say that I do not believe you capable of carrying on a vulgar flirtation or intrigue, but remember we knew practically nothing of you when we took you into our home. If you are interested in anyone, if you are secretly engaged, you should tell us and your fiance must present himself here. Willa, is there a man in the case?"

The girl smiled slowly and gazed off into space. Watching her, Mason North drew a deep breath, for into her changing expression there came a look of implacable, passionless vengeance which made her for the moment the personification of Fate.

"Yes," she said at last. "There is a man in the case, Cousin Irene, but not as you imagine. I have not seen him since I left Mexico and personally he is nothing to me; in fact, I scarcely know him, as you count knowing a person. I have a little matter of business to settle with him, that is all."

Mrs. Halstead sighed and turned to the door as the butler appeared.

"What is it, Welsh?"

"A gentleman, Madam." He extended the salver.

Mrs. Halstead glanced at the card and then quickly toward her daughter, and her face broke into an exultant smile.

"Of course, we are at home!" Then, as Welsh withdrew. "Fancy, we did not even know he had returned! It's Starr Wiley!"



CHAPTER XI

A CHANGE OF FRONT

The following morning, Willa and Dan Morrissey went motor shopping. The latter was still slightly bewildered by his sudden change of fortune, but it was plain to be seen that he regarded his new employer with worshipful admiration and respect, and she in turn was satisfied, from his discussion of technical details with the several automobile salesmen, that he was sufficiently expert for her purposes. His loyalty remained to be proven, but she had learned to read faces swiftly and surely, and she had formed an instinctive belief that he was worthy of trust.

The car she decided upon was a gray roadster, light and high-powered with long low lines like a racer and a multiplicity of cylinders which made Dan fairly delirious with joy. This important matter settled, she gave him his initial instructions.

"You are simply to hold yourself in readiness for a call from me at any hour of the day or night. You are to obey no summons unless you hear my voice over the telephone, or a written order in my handwriting is brought to you—unless a hunch backed boy about sixteen, a foreigner with very dark skin, should come to you. In that case, you are to accompany him wherever he directs. Do you drink, Dan?"

"Only beer, and not that when I'm on the job, Miss." He eyed her straightforwardly. "I don't go joy-ridin', and I keep my mouth shut, and ask no questions. I'll be on the spot when you want me, Miss, and there till the finish."

"I'm sure you will!" she smiled. "I sha'n't mind your asking questions so much as answering them. There are apt to be quite a few people interested in our doings, Dan; a young man and two older ones particularly, and they will try all sorts of methods to get information from you."

"Let 'em," he responded, briefly. "It's precious-little dope they'll get out of me! But have you forgotten the registry, Miss, and the license?"

"No." Willa drew a roll of bills from her purse. "It had better be attended to at once, for I don't know how soon I may need you. That's why I insisted upon having their exhibition car, without waiting for delivery. Take this and get yourself an outfit; something dark and neat, not noticeable so that it could be easily described. Then can't you take out the license in your own name? You can refer to me if you like, and say that I gave you the car."

"As if you'd set me up in the renting business, maybe," he observed shrewdly. "I guess I can put it over, Miss. I've got a good, clean record in taxi'-driving, and I know most of the cops. You'll 'phone when you want me?"

Taking leave of her new henchman, Willa crossed the Park on foot and swung down the Avenue, so intent upon her own thoughts that she all but collided with Vernon, descending the steps of his club. He appeared troubled and morose, but his brow cleared at sight of her.

"Hello! May I walk a bit of the way with you?" He fell into step beside her. "I say, you aren't angry with me about last night, are you?"

"Indeed no, Vernon. Why should I be? You did nothing."

"That's just why." He reddened. "Perhaps you think I might have taken your part after what a bully pal you proved yourself the night you showed Cal Shirley up, and I did feel like telling the whole bunch to stop hectoring you, the mater included, only—well, we can't do just what we'd like, always!"

"There wasn't anything you could have said, really," she assured him. "I was the only one involved and I had to see it through."

"At least, I want you to believe I never mentioned any house on the Parkway, or saw you there. Angie made a mistake. Someone did say something about it once, but I didn't repeat it." He gave her a curious sidewise glance, but her face was inscrutable.

"I believe you, of course, but it doesn't matter anyway, Vernon. I'm sorry everyone was so worried about my absence last evening, but it was unavoidable. Don't let's discuss it any more."

"All right," he sighed. "I only wish, though, that I'd learned to stand up to the family the way you can. You're so different to the girls up here, but I suppose that is the result of the wonderful, free kind of a life you led in Mexico. You must have had some great experiences down there."

It was Willa's turn to glance curiously at him, for Vernon's tone was oddly constrained and hesitant as if he were endeavoring, awkwardly enough, to lead up to some point in his own mind.

"Yes," she assented quietly, and waited.

"Starr Wiley was disappointed last night at not seeing you," he pursued. "I never knew you had met him down there."

"You never asked." Her tone was serenely noncommittal.

"He was telling us of some of the queer characters he has run across in that part of the country." Vernon paused, and then plunged in desperately. "He said you knew one old woman who was a wonder; a half-caste hoodoo-worker who brewed magic potions in a big pot, and knew all the legends of the countryside. 'Tia—' something, her name is. Do you know what has become of her?"

He blurted the question point-blank, and Willa smiled in spite of herself.

"Tia Juana, you mean? Did Mr. Wiley say she had left her home? I never heard of her doing that before," she remarked innocently enough.

"It seems she disappeared some time ago, and no one knows what happened to her. She must have been a queer old bird."

"Why are you so interested in her?"

He started, blinking at the swift directness of the question.

"Oh, I was thinking what a hit she'd make telling fortunes at some of the charity bazaars, if she ever came up here. People are always so nutty about anything new and a genuine witch would be a sensation."

"Tia Juana is not a witch and she doesn't tell fortunes. She is a little bit peculiar, perhaps, like many other very old people, but that is all." Willa laughed lightly. "Mr. Wiley must have been stringing you! What else did he tell you about Mexico?"

But Vernon's mind was apparently hazy on the subject of his friend's further reminiscences, and he left her at the door with ill-concealed alacrity. She knew that the conversation had not been uninspired, and his otherwise futile questions had served a useful purpose in forewarning her.

"You will go to the opera with us to-night?" It was more a query than a command which Mrs. Halstead addressed to her. "We are going on afterward to the Judsons', but we can drop you at home if you don't care to accompany us."

"Thank you, no," Willa responded. "If you don't mind I think I will stay quietly at home this evening, but I'll try to keep my engagements in future. I wish there were not quite so many of them!"

"That can be arranged," Mrs. Halstead assured her stiffly. "I wish to give you every opportunity to meet all the eligible people in our circle and then you must select your own friends."

The truce between them was evidently to be an armed one, but it was a respite at least. Willa realized that her cousin would not soon forgive defeat at her hands, but her attitude was more fortuitous than open war.

She had intended to write a long-delayed letter to Jim Baggott, but after the family departed and she settled herself at her desk, the words would not frame themselves in her thoughts. A spirit of unrest took possession of her, a sensation of suspense which did not lighten with the dragging minutes, and in despair she flung down her pen and wandered into the music-room.

Piano lessons had appeared to Willa to be a sheer waste of time and patience in this era of mechanism, and she had not responded with any degree of enthusiasm to Mrs. Halstead's suggestion made shortly after her arrival, but now she touched the keys wistfully. Oh, for one of Mestiza Bill's tinkley old tunes on the piano in the Blue Chip!

She was turning blindly away, when the phonograph in the corner caught her eye and on an idle impulse she started it. By chance, the record left on the machine had been that of the latest tango, and as she listened to the pulsing, languorous strains, Willa commenced half-unconsciously to sway in rhythm with its lilting harmony.

The next minute she was dancing, but not in the dull, mincing fashion in which she had so recently been coached. The music caught at her homesick heart-strings, the old familiar scent of blossoming gardenias was in her nostrils and she was out under a Mexican night. Her pulses leaped to the throbbing notes, and she flung herself sinuously into the measures of the tango, snapping her fingers in lieu of castanets.

All thought of her present environment had slipped away from her, but she was recalled sharply to herself when the music stopped and she halted, flushed and panting.

"Brava!" a cool, slightly mocking voice called from the doorway, and the soft pad of gloved hands sounded upon her startled ears. Whirling about, she found herself face to face with Starr Wiley.

"Brava!" he repeated. "Charming, Miss Murdaugh! I would not have missed it for worlds!"

"How did you come here?" she stammered.

"By way of the front door, most conventionally, I assure you. I heard the phonograph and told Welsh not to announce me." He shrugged, and drew off his glove. "Aren't you going to greet me, Miss Murdaugh?"

There was a covert sneer in the repetition of her name, and Willa made no advance.

"My cousin is not at home."

"I did not come to see your cousin. I came to renew my acquaintance and make my peace with you. Are you going to punish me still for my temerity in Limasito?"

"No." A little, quizzical smile hovered about her lips. "I think you were quite sufficiently punished for that."

Ignoring the dull red which swept up into his face, she led the way to the drawing-room and dropped into a chair, motioning him to one on the opposite side of the glowing hearth.

"I thought you would be at the opera to-night; I looked for you there, but Mrs. Halstead said you did not feel quite up to it, so I came on the chance that you would say 'How do you do?' to me. We have all missed you in Limasito."

"You have become quite a native, then?" She raised her eyebrows. "You find the life there more congenial, perhaps, than at first."

"Not since you left, my dear Billie. Or is that name forbidden?"

"It is forgotten. Only my friends may recall it, and you were never of their number, Mr. Wiley."

"I beg your pardon. I, too, had forgotten for the moment that it must bring you tragic memories." His voice was lowered to the tones of conventional condolence. "Believe me, I would not have grieved you, Miss Murdaugh. I meant it for a jest, but it was lucklessly ill-timed."

"I would rather not speak of what is past, Mr. Wiley. It is still too fresh in my memory." Willa's eyes, fixed on the flames, were dry and very bright.

"But now that you are here, perhaps you will tell me something of my friends."

"Gladly, but there is little news," he responded hastily. "I have been very busy and, as you know, nothing interests me below the border now but my work. Your friend, Jim Baggott, is flourishing, the crowd that bought out the Blue Chip are bringing new life to Limasito—but I have hurt you again. I am sorry."

Willa had winced uncontrollably, but she recovered herself and smiled.

"And Mr. Thode?" She voiced her query blandly, and Wiley flushed.

"I have seen nothing of him," he responded. "To tell you the truth, I've forgotten the very existence of the fellow. He took care to keep out of my way after your departure until I myself went West."

"You have not come, then, directly from Mexico?"

"No. A little matter of business took me to Arizona. I may tell you of it sometime, I am sure it would be of peculiar interest to you." He smiled, with an odd light in his eyes. "As for Kearn Thode, if you'll permit a little friendly advice, Miss Murdaugh, I wouldn't waste any thoughts on him. I don't believe in discussing a chap's affairs behind his back, but I can assure you his own memory is very short."

"Still, I do not forget my friends, Mr. Wiley, nor my enemies."

"There is much else that I would like to ask you to forget," he said slowly. "I was a cad, I know, but I fancied that you were too broad and generous to hold the madness of a moment against me. I hoped you would be more kind to me when we met here in the environment in which we both belong. I even dreamed that we might be friends."

"Are we enemies, Mr. Wiley?" She raised her eyes to his. "I assure you I have not given that little scene on the camino a second thought."

"Then shall we start all over?" he asked eagerly. "Since you deny me a former one, won't you let our friendship date from this hour? I cannot tell you how delighted I was when I learned that your relatives had found you and that you had taken your rightful place. I knew from the first that you were different to the rest; you were the only one I cared to know, and you would not——"

"Play about with you?" She smiled dryly. "I don't think I have ever learned how to play, and now I am more serious than ever. There are responsibilities, I find, attached to my present situation of which that other girl in Limasito never dreamed."

"Naturally," he conceded, adding quickly: "But you are fortunately not troubled with the details of your estate, while you have two such efficient guardians as Mr. North and your cousin."

The rising inflection in his tone seemed to demand a reply, but Willa vouchsafed none and after a moment he went on:

"You must find the social life very engrossing. I know that I am always glad to get back to civilization after a few months in the wilds. I would have returned earlier in the season, but my work was not completed."

"And is it now?" she asked with studied carelessness.

"Almost. I came to consult my partner, Harrington Chase—I believe you know him, by the way."

"He dined here, but he said nothing about your return. My cousin was quite agreeably surprised. She is going on to the Judsons' after the opera, did she tell you?"

The hint was unmistakable, but he shook his head, smilingly.

"I really don't remember. I only had a moment's chat with her after the curtain fell on the first act. I saw that you were not in the box with them, and I went to it merely to inquire about you. You were not in evidence when I called last evening——"

"You came to see Angie, did you not? At least, that was my impression."

"I came to see the whole family, of course, but particularly you." He smiled constrainedly. "Your cousin is a very charming girl, and we were great pals before I left for Mexico, but I assure you she does not regard me with any more warmly personal interest than she grants to a host of her other friends."

"My cousin does not discuss her affairs with me, but I have heard rumors which led me to believe you were to be congratulated."

Starr Wiley writhed.

"I have not that good fortune," he said stonily.

"Perhaps my remark was premature?"

"No. Your cousin is quite too clever and worldly to have misunderstood my interest. We were congenial, and it happened that we were thrown together a lot, but I am sure she never thought of any serious outcome of our companionship. I would not have mentioned this to you, but you seemed to be laboring under a false impression. Rumor is never at rest in our set, and I want you to be assured of the truth."

"Why?" Willa sat straight in her chair. "What possible difference could it make to me? I am interested, naturally in anything pertaining to my cousin, but her affairs are her own."

"I want it to make a great deal of difference." He leaned toward her with a swift, avid light in his eyes. "Ever since I first saw you in Limasito I knew that you were the only girl I had ever really wanted, the only girl who could hold me, who was worth working for and waiting for. Gad! I loved everything about you, even that furious, blazing temper of yours, and I determined then that I would make you care!"

"You!" She shrank from him in horror and amazement. "You dare to speak to me of such a thing?"

"Why should I not?" he cried eagerly. "These other girls, these pretty stuffed dolls who preen themselves and go through their conventional paces like marionettes on a string; they are fitted perhaps to preside at a man's table and hold up the social end of the game, but it is women like you who fire a man's soul as well and drive him to madness! I knew there in Mexico that you were the one woman who would ever be my wife!"

"You were so sure?" Willa had regained her composure now, and her quick brain was probing the possibilities of this unexpected situation. "That is why, I suppose, you brought your cave-man method into play?"

"I lost control of myself," he admitted. "Can you blame me, now that you know the truth? Your scorn, your refusal to accept even my friendship, drove me to desperation. I could not endure it that you should turn from me——"

"Was it not rather that you could not brook defeat at the hands of a product of the Blue Chip, a mere gambler's daughter? It piqued you that I did not faint with delight because I had found favor in your eyes!" Her scorn bit deep. "Now that conditions are reversed, you call it love!"

"You are horribly unjust!" He sprang from his chair and towered over her. "You have listened to the lies of that braggart, Thode, and condemned me unheard! His grand-stand play at the time of the raid has blinded you and you will not be fair. You do not even know what love is, but I can teach you and I will! I offended you by my impetuosity when you provoked me to madness, but now I will be in the dust before you! Only tell me that you don't quite hate me, that I have a fighting chance!"

Willa realized the truth of his sudden change of front; the granddaughter of Giles Murdaugh would be a more desirable asset as a wife than Ripley Halstead's daughter. His audacity in attempting to woo her in the very home of the girl he had so lately made love to, and with his former conduct still fresh in the minds of both, filled her with disgust and loathing, but she held herself with an iron hand.

"What can I say to you, Mr. Wiley?" She forced a smile. "I can scarcely believe you serious!"

"I will prove it to you!" he exclaimed, bending until his impassioned eyes were close to hers. "I will show you how patient I can be, and devoted. I will wait, I will not try to rush you into a decision, but you are going to care for me, Billie! You are going to be my wife."

"Upon my word!" A light voice, oddly shaken, came from behind them. "You two look fearfully intense! Do I intrude?"

Angie, her face aflame, stood in the doorway.

"On the contrary!" Wiley was the first to recover himself. "A delightful surprise, my dear Angelica! Had I known you were coming directly home from the opera I would have offered my services."

"I—I thought you were going on to the Judsons' dance," Willa stammered.

"Evidently." Angie sneered, looking from one to the other of them. "I was mistaken also, it appears. I fancied you were indisposed, but that was a mere facon de parler, no doubt.—My cousin is getting on, isn't she, Starr?"

Willa flushed, but Starr Wiley replied easily:

"We were just renewing our acquaintanceship, Miss Murdaugh and I met in Limasito, you know."

"How unfortunate!" Angie tittered. "Just when Willa was so successfully living down the past, too! It really wasn't tactful of you, Starr—"

"You are mistaken once more, Angelica!" Willa had risen and her very lips were white. "I am not trying to live down the past, but to live up to it! If you will excuse me now—"

"Oh, don't let me interrupt your charming tete-a-tete," shrugged Angie. "I only stopped on my way to the Judsons' for my vanity case. The car is coming back for me."

Wiley glanced quickly at Willa, then turned to her cousin.

"I am going on also. Will you give me a lift? I really dropped in just to say 'How-do-you-do'."

"Good-night, Mr. Wiley." Willa held out her hand to him.

"Good-night. Remember my prediction." His eyes rested upon her daringly, their ardor for a fleeting instant unmasked as the other girl turned away. "I am willing to stake my life that it will come true."

She smiled, adopting his own light bantering tone.

"Is it worth so high a stake? Good-night, Angie."

Without waiting for a reply, she bowed, and, turning, left them together.



CHAPTER XII

COALS OF FIRE

Willa paused in the vestibule of the shabby apartment-house and looked carefully up and down the street before venturing forth. The early dusk had fallen and the lamps were not yet alight, but the passers-by were still clearly discernible in the gloom. The girl studied their movements for a time, and noting that none loitered or retraced their steps, she descended and made her way around the corner to where her car was waiting.

Dan Morrissey touched his cap with alacrity.

"One guy in a taxicab down the avenue there, Miss, and another across the street. Where to, now?"

"The little house on the Parkway, where you took me the first time," she directed on a sudden impulse. "When you drop me there, go straight back to the garage and wait until you get a call from me."

"They're both stringing out behind us," he announced, when they had traversed a mile or more in silence.

"That is what I wanted them to do," Willa responded. "Don't look back again, Dan; just go along as if you didn't know anyone was trailing. I'm glad you lighted up while you were waiting for me."

The long, low car seemed to stretch out over the road like a lean horse in a speed that ate up the miles and more than one motor-cycle policeman gazed appraisingly after them, but they drove steadily ahead and drew up at length before the sagging gate.

Darkness had come and the little house looked bleak and deserted. As Willa sprang out of the car, Dan hesitated, and then volunteered:

"Looks as if there wasn't anybody there. Sure you don't want me to wait, Miss? The first taxi' is coming now."

"No. Don't worry about me, Dan." She smiled understandingly. "I don't think I'll need you any more to-night, but wait at the garage until ten. Now go quickly, please."

Without a backward glance, she mounted the path and inserted a key in the door. All was silence and gloom within, but she fumbled her way to a mantel in the small front room and found a box of matches. Lighting them one after the other as they burned out, she made her way from room to room on each of the two floors. They were bare of furniture, but the debris of a hasty exodus was visible everywhere, and half the windows were unfastened.

Willa wasted no time in looking about, but made her way quickly to the heat register let into the floor of each room, and opened them wide. Then she fled down the creaking stairs to the cellar, heedless of the mice which scurried in droves before her, and opened the door of the cold, empty furnace.

The chill dampness of the low, cramped vault no less than the animate darkness made her shiver, but she resolutely crawled into the furnace and pulled the door close behind her. She was scarcely settled in her place when footsteps sounded on the porch above and an indistinguishable murmur of male voices.

Presently the footsteps retreated, there came the rasp of an opening window and then the tramp of feet within the house. There were two distinct treads; one light and springy as a cat's, the other dragging heavily and in apparent reluctance from room to room in the wake of the first.

The voices reached her, now raised as the intruders called to each other, now lowered in an earnest monotone, but to Willa's disappointment the registers did not carry the sound to her as she had hoped and the tones alone reached her ear in a confused rumble.

It was evident that a complete search of the house was in progress, but at last the two men came to a halt beside the register in the room directly above that part of the cellar where the girl crouched and the words floated down to her, sharp and distinct in the silence.

"They've flown the coop, all right, whoever they were." It was Vernon's voice. "I don't see why Willa came up here now, though, if she knew they had gone. Where do you suppose she is?"

"She may not have known." Starr Wiley replied thoughtfully. "Finding the place deserted and hearing us on the porch in all probability, she may have slipped out the back door and taken the subway down-town. Remember that burnt match I found in the hall was still warm. I wonder if it's worth while to have a look in the cellar?"

"In the darkness, and filth, and rats, too, for all you know? No girl would take a chance." Vernon's tone was lofty with contempt, but it changed as he burst out: "Who are these people, anyway, and why are they hiding and what are you so keen after them for? I hate fooling around blindfold like this, and how do I know it's fair to Willa? What is her connection with them?"

"You don't have to know, my dear fellow!" Wiley spoke with the bland mockery the listening girl remembered. "It's up to you to do what you are told and ask no questions. Why this sudden chivalry?"

"Well, you know, Willa's one of the family now. Hang it, I like her, anyway, and I'm not going a step farther in this till I find out what the devil you are up to!"

"A perfectly square business deal, if you must know. Your conscience is waking up rather late in the day, don't you think?" The mockery changed to a swift menace. "As to how far you will go, that will be as I direct, or you, my dear Vernon, will find yourself in a position where the going is distinctly not good."

"Gad! I'd rather face it than stand any more of your domineering!" Vernon's faltering tones belied his words and the other laughed shortly.

"All right. The money is earning no interest for me. I'll put through the check to-morrow."

"Oh, I say—!"

"Then come along, you young puppy, and no more whining, or I'll——"

The steps moved away and the voices again sank to an indistinguishable murmur, but Willa had learned enough. Waiting only long enough to make sure of their departure, she crept from her hiding-place, and, heedless of the soot which clung to her boots and skirt, she acted upon Wiley's inadvertent suggestion.

From the subway station she took a taxicab and reached home just in time to dress for dinner. A not wholly disinterested plan was forming itself in her mind and gained added strength of purpose with each glance at Vernon's pale, troubled face across the table.

Angie, who had been cold and distant all day, departed for the theater; the elder Halsteads went to a bridge party, but Vernon wandered aimlessly into the library where Willa found him staring into the fire in profound dejection.

"What is the matter, Vernon?" she asked abruptly. "You haven't been at all like yourself these last few days. We're pals, you know; tell me."

He glanced up, hastily shifted his eyes, and then blurted out desperately.

"If you'd ever been an absolute rotter and then got on to the fact when it was too late, I guess you wouldn't be very much like yourself, either. I'm a confounded cad, Willa, and worse!" He dropped his head on his hands with a groan. "I ought to be shot!"

"Well, that's a healthy sign," Willa observed cheerfully. "Lots of people are rotters and never find it out. It's like a disease; when you know what is the matter, you can usually find a cure."

"Sometimes it's incurable." His voice was muffled. "I'm in a hole and there's no way out."

"Then climb up again." Willa paused and added deliberately: "Don't try to burrow a passage-way through slime, Vernon. You'll only get in deeper and deeper."

That brought his head up with a suspicious start.

"I say, what do you know about it?"

"Suppose you tell me?"

"You, Willa? You're the last person in the world—!" He broke off hastily.

"Why? If you are in a scrape perhaps I could help you out of it."

"It's worse than a scrape! It's something beyond the pale; it's the sort of thing they shoot a man for, down where you came from! Now you know!"

"Yes," responded Willa slowly, "I do know. Now tell me what that check is, which Starr Wiley is holding over your head."

Vernon rose with blanching face.

"You heard! Good Lord, where were you?"

"In the furnace!" Willa dimpled irrepressibly. "Right in it, with the ashes and all! And you stood talking straight down into the open register, like a speaking tube."

Vernon cringed away from her in bitter shame.

"Then if you heard the whole thing, you know what a wretched cad I've been, spying on you and trying to get information from you for that bounder."

"I knew about that before, Vernon. When I met you leaving the club yesterday and you tried to question me about Tia Juana, you made a dreadful mess of it. I saw right through you and I realized for whom you must be acting, but not why, of course." She drew a deep breath and added in a matter-of-fact tone: "What's the matter with that check Wiley has? Is it a forgery?"

He nodded dumbly.

"Whose name did you sign? I might as well know the rest, don't you think?"

"Mason North's." His voice was a mere strained whisper. "I must have been crazy to do such a thing!"

"What sum did you make it out for?"

"Four thousand dollars." He gazed at her as if hypnotized, replying mechanically under the sheer dominance of her will.

"Was it for speculation or in payment of some sort of debt?"

"A debt of honor!" He laughed in measureless self-contempt. "Poker."

"I see. But, Vernon, don't make me drag it out of you like this. Tell me the whole story."

"It was before Starr went to Mexico." Vernon hesitated and then the words came with a rush from his overburdened breast. "He was playing up strong to Angie, and he saw I didn't like it. Father is hipped about him and so is old North; they think he's the coming man in the oil game, and he may be for all I know, but I'd heard other things about him and I wasn't keen on having him for a brother-in-law. He began to jolly me along; made up parties and wanted me to pal around with him. He's older and he goes with the swiftest bunch in town, and, like a regular saphead, I was flattered. He put me up at his club, and I got into some pretty high play, away over my head, but I wouldn't have him or his friends think I was a piker, so I stuck.

"He won usually, and I almost got writer's cramp making out I. O. U.'s for him. Then his manner changed a bit and he began kidding me. He was good-natured with it at first, but after a while he grew nasty, and one night he taunted me before the whole crowd about my four-flushing.

"I'd been drinking and it made me wild. I don't know what put the idea in my head, but I brooded over it and I couldn't see any other way out. Father had said when he paid my debts before that it was the last time, and he meant it. I—I took a check from his desk—he and Mason North have accounts in the same bank—and I made it out, copying the signature from an old letter."

His voice was getting lower and lower, and finally it halted, but Willa prompted him firmly.

"What happened after you gave it to Starr Wiley?"

"Nothing. I realized what I had done when it was too late, of course, and I lived in just plain hell for the next four weeks, waiting for the blow to fall, but it didn't. At last I couldn't stand the strain any longer; I went to Starr and asked him if he'd put it through, and he said he hadn't. He knew when he accepted it from me that it was forged. I had given him a song-and-dance about it being some money coming to me from your grandfather's estate, but it hadn't fooled him for a minute.

"I groveled at his feet and told him I'd work my fingers to the bone to pay it back, but he said I could do that in his way, at his own time. He's held me under his thumb ever since, and when he got in town a few days ago he sent for me and forced me to try to get a line on this Tia Juana woman through you. I hated it, Willa, but, God! what could I do?"

"What you are going to do now." Willa rose with decision. "You're going to Mason North at once, and make a clean breast of the whole thing."

"I couldn't! I thought of that, but you don't know the old boy—"

"I know he's square, and I guess I can handle him, if you can't. I'm going with you and I'll reimburse him for the four thousand, to let the check go through. Then you can tell Wiley to go—to go ahead and show you up."

"Willa!" Something very like a sob welled up in his throat. "You would do that for me, after—after——"

"You didn't do anything very dreadful to me, Vernon."

"But I promised to spy on you."

"That's all right. Wiley is in this affair simply on a business deal as he told you to-day, although I doubt the squareness as far as he is concerned. But I'm out for higher stakes—" She paused, clinching her hands. "Never mind about that. I'm going to 'phone Mr. North, and see if we can catch him at home."

"Look here." There was a ring of strength in Vernon's tones. "I appreciate, no end, what you've offered to do, Willa, but it can't be! I'm pretty low, I'll admit, but I'm not such a rotter as to take that kind of help from a girl!"

"Why not?" Willa asked quickly. "You said yourself this afternoon that I was one of the family, and, besides, you can pay me back, you know."

"I wonder if you really believe that I would!" he remarked wistfully.

"I know you will!" she retorted. "I'm putting up that money on a bet with myself, and it's a sure thing. You'll make good, Vernon."

Mason North was comfortably ensconced in his own library, with a Life of Disraeli and a malodorous pipe, when Willa burst in upon him.

"Mr. North, you told me to come to you if I was in any difficulty, and—and I'm here!"

"Certainly, my dear!" He was plainly startled. "I shall be delighted to be of any service that I can. What is it that you wish my advice on?"

"I don't want any advice! I want you to help me compound a felony."

"My dear Willa!" His rotund face paled. "Are you serious? You cannot realize what you have said!"

"Oh, yes, I can!" she affirmed. "A friend of mine signed a check with a name that wasn't given to him in baptism, and I want you to see that it goes through all right, and nothing happens. I'll give you my own check out of Dad's money to cover the amount, and that'll be a comfort to you; you'll know where some of it is, at any rate."

"Forgery!" he groaned. "It is outrageous, Willa! Scandalous! A young woman of your position consorting with a criminal! Oh, we have all been too easy with you; we permitted you to defy us, and now you will disgrace the name you bear! I knew that you had been associated with desperadoes of the lowest type, but I thought that now—"

"Just a minute, Mr. North!" Her tone was ominous. "We'll leave my old friends out of this, if you don't mind."

But Mr. North was far too agitated to take heed.

"This will kill your Cousin Irene—!"

"I expect it would," she interposed soberly. "But she will never know it, Mr. North. What I tell you now must never go beyond this room."

Forthwith, Willa related the whole story just as it had fallen from Vernon's unhappy lips, and the attorney listened in consternation. She eliminated, however, all mention of Wiley's knowledge that the check was a forgery and his attempt to drive a bargain on the strength of it.

"Mr. Wiley meant to put the check through, of course, but he mislaid it," she substituted. "When he returned a few days ago, he came upon it among his papers and told Vernon this afternoon that he was going to turn it in at his bank. Vernon couldn't tell him the truth, because—well, you wouldn't want a thing like that to be known outside the family, would you? You are different, you know."

"Why didn't that young whelp come to me?" North snorted. "It's a wonder his sly wits didn't grasp the fact that I wouldn't prosecute, because of his father, but I might have started something I couldn't stop short of a scandal if the check had been put through and I not known he was at the bottom of it."

"He was afraid," Willa explained simply. "He isn't really bad, he's only weak, and I guess you-all have hounded him so that he's just about ready to stick up a train! He's out in the drawing-room now, and just as soon as you let me write a check for you I'll bring him in."

"You'll write no check!" thundered North. "Just you send him in here to me."

"But I must!" Willa pleaded. "Don't you see, it's the turning-point for him. Let him realize he owes me that money and if he hasn't got a yellow streak a mile wide, it'll be the making of him. If you just blow him up and then forgive him, he'll be back where he was before it happened, and liable to repeat it. I've known some pretty rough characters, as you said a while ago; you learn a lot about human nature in a place like the Blue Chip, Mr. North, and I've seen men going the way Vernon's headed for, just because nobody believed there was anything in him to hold him back. I'm trusting Vernon to pay it back and that's the very reason why he will."

Mr. North cleared his throat.

"You're a—a damn'-fine young woman, Willa Murdaugh—and an uncommonly wise one! We'll give the boy a chance. I hope he will realize some day what he owes to you."

Willa hesitated and then her native honesty came uppermost.

"I haven't done this for him alone. I can't say that I wouldn't have, of course, but I'm just freezing him out this hand." She smiled at the other's bewilderment. "It's funny how everything reduces to poker terms, isn't it? I'll send Vernon in."

"Wait! Let me understand this." North put out a detaining hand. "If you're not doing this for that young scapegrace in there I'd like to know in whose interest it is. Is there something else back of it?"

"If I tried to explain, Mr. North, you'd be in a worse muddle than ever," Willa told him candidly. "Dad always said you could take care of the pat hands against you if you froze out the four-flushers.—Don't scold Vernon, please. Remember, he's just balancing; a push either way will determine his course for the future. I'll wait for him."

A long half-hour passed, but when she heard her name called in the attorney's strangely subdued tones, Willa reentered the library to find the two standing with clasped hands. Both were flushed and seemed to find difficulty in speech, but at length Vernon burst out:

"Willa, he's a trump! I never realized what an utter beast I was until now and it's just because he hasn't said anything that he might well have! It isn't only the money, though I'll work like a dog to pay that back——"

"I know you will, my boy!" North found his voice, although it was suspiciously husky. "Willa's sure of you, too."

"That's it, that's what counts! A fellow couldn't help but be straight with two such friends believing in him!" Vernon choked, but he squared his shoulders. "Will you shake hands with me, too, Willa? I'm not going to talk, I'm not going to try to thank you, but I'm going to show you! I know what friendship means now, and I mean to be worthy of it!"

Their hands clasped, and, looking into his eyes, Willa said with conviction:

"I'll bank on you, Vernon. Go in and win. It'll be a stiff game, but you can't lose for you're on the square now."



CHAPTER XIII

THE CHALLENGE

"What do you think about this?" Harrington Chase growled as his partner entered the private office the next morning. "Somebody's getting after us good and plenty!"

"Let them come!" Starr Wiley shrugged. "We're on the right side of the fence now, nobody can touch us. Anything from Cranmore?"

"Yes. Whoever it is that is trying to get a line on us isn't overlooking any bets. Our men have been keeping me posted on the inquiries up here, and they've got the dope so straight that it's my opinion they have reached one of the inside staff." His tones lowered and he glanced significantly toward the ground-glass partition which separated them from the small army of clerks in the outer office. "It doesn't matter, of course, but it would be just as well for the future to know if we have an enemy in camp.—Now, Cranmore wires me in code from Limasito that someone down there is mightily interested in our titles and leases and particularly in what new fields we're opening up. I tell you, if you don't get in touch with that old woman soon, somebody will beat us to it as sure as you're alive."

"I have got a line on her." Wiley paused to light a cigar. "I told you I suspected she'd been brought up here, and I've verified it. I know where she and that hunchbacked kid were living two days ago. They've cleared out, but I've put a couple of men on the party that will lead us straight to her. I'd like to know, though, who is so devilishly interested in our affairs."

"It is Larkin's outfit, of course. That young engineer they've got down there has spudded in the Consuegra, that you passed up, and it's producing seven hundred and fifty barrels a day as a starter."

Wiley thrust out his jaw.

"That's all right. I know Larkin's man; Kearn Thode, his name is. I met him before out in Oklahoma, and I've no use for him. He's had little use for me, either, and between you and me, he's got less now than ever before, only he doesn't know it!" He laughed shortly. "You might be surprised to know that Larkin himself was after the Lost Souls."

"What?" Chase swirled about in his chair to face his partner.

"Fact. I don't know how he got wind of it, but as soon as Thode showed up and began nosing about I knew what his game was."

"No wonder they're butting in on our affairs! We'll have to do some quick work——"

Wiley laughed again.

"No fear of trouble from Thode. I beat him to it and spiked his guns at the same time. He's given it up as a bad job; that's why he tackled the Consuegra. Wait till we pull off the big noise and he'll be welcome to all the jitney gushers below the border."

"When we do," Harrington Chase observed with emphasis. "We'll have to get hold of the old dame first."

"We'll land her." Wiley smote his desk. "There isn't a woman living, young or old, who can cut the ground out from under my feet!"

But a distinct shock awaited him when he entered the club that evening, in the attitude of his erstwhile ally, Vernon Halstead. He had difficulty in locating the young man at first; a survey of his usual haunts, the bar and card-rooms, failed to disclose him, but Wiley ran him to earth finally in the library, deep in a bulky and serious-looking volume.

"Improving your mind?" he sneered.

Vernon raised his eyes serenely.

"Never too late to learn, is it?" he observed. "I've found out a lot in the last day or two."

"You mean—?" Wiley dropped into a chair beside him. "Any new developments? Did she go out alone to-day?"

"My cousin?" Vernon closed his book, and rose. "I haven't the least idea, I assure you. I ran out to Mineola myself, with an aviator chap I know."

He had paused, looking down at his interrogator, and at the expression in his eyes the latter half rose also, then sank back.

"And just what am I to infer?" Wiley spoke through set teeth.

"Anything you like, my dear fellow. Help yourself."

"Ah! You're going to renege, are you? You're prepared to take the consequences?"

"You've guessed it." Vernon nodded. "I'm off the dirty work, Starr. You'll have to do your own sleuthing in future."

"You realize what it means? I've never bluffed in my life, Vernon, and I'll push this thing to the limit!"

"Go as far as you like." Vernon waved his hand airily. Then his expression hardened. "But whatever happens, leave my cousin out of your future plans. Do you understand? Play your game with men if you like, but leave the women of my family alone."

"Indeed?" This time Wiley rose, and the two looked levelly into each other's eyes. "When you go up for forgery you won't be in a position to interfere with any game I choose to play. I've told you this was a straight business proposition, Vernon, there is no use getting melodramatic about it. I've taken a lot of insolence from you, and I'm prepared to teach you a lesson."

"And I am always willing to learn, my dear Starr. It's up to you." He bowed formally, and, turning on his heel, left the room.

For a time Wiley communed with himself. The worm had turned, with a vengeance, and the maneuver was beyond his comprehension. In spite of his declaration anent a bluff, he was not prepared to push the matter of the check to the end he had threatened. A scandal was farthest from his desire and other considerations were involved; his matrimonial ambitions not the least of them, if he antagonized the Halstead family. Then, too, what could have been back of Vernon's sudden independence? Was it an idle bluff, or had the young scamp managed in some way to protect himself?

The conclusion of his cogitations led him to the telephone and a half hour later found him confronting Mason North in the latter's home, much as Willa had done on the previous night.

"Sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. North, but this is a strictly confidential matter, and rather urgent. I have your assurance that it will go no farther?"

"Certainly!" Mason North was suspiciously affable. "Take a seat and try one of these cigars. They're made especially for me in Porto Rico and I know you to be a connoisseur. You were saying——?"

"I have a check in my possession signed presumably by you." Wiley chose his words with evident care. "It was made payable to bearer and of course I do not know whether it changed hands or not before reaching me. I wish to insinuate nothing, but I should like your assurance that the signature is genuine before depositing it."

"You have it with you?" the attorney asked crisply.

Wiley nodded, and, taking an oblong slip of paper from his bill-case, he presented it for the older man's inspection.

"Um! Four thousand dollars, eh? The signature looks all right to me, but I don't quite recall making it out. I have my old stubs here in the desk, and if you will wait I'll look it up."

Secure in the outcome, Wiley was more than willing to wait. He sat with a half smile on his face, puffing at his fragrant cigar and formulating his next move, when the storm should break.

But the other's voice cut short his pleasant reflections and the words themselves brought him up standing.

"Yes. Here we are! I gave that check to young Halstead. It is quite correct; 'four thousand'. Little matter of an inheritance. I—I trust he hasn't been speculating, but I suppose I must not ask, eh? Sad young dog, Vernon!"

"It was a business transaction of rather a private nature, but I can assure you that Vernon was not a loser by it." Wiley's tone was quiet, but he had gone white to the lips "I would not have doubted the signature, except for the fact that I thought it an unusually large sum to be payable to bearer, and, as I said, I did not know to whom it had been issued originally. I am sorry to have troubled you."

He took his leave amid the other's cordial protestations, with outward composure, but his expression changed savagely as he descended the steps of the house and started up the Avenue.

The attorney's attitude had not deceived him for a moment. Someone had checkmated him, that was plain; had disclosed the truth and persuaded North to shield Vernon. Could that young man have confessed voluntarily and thrown himself on the attorney's mercy rather than play the game? But such a step would have involved courage of a sort, and he was sure Vernon did not possess enough of that commodity to carry him so far. Someone must have interceded for him—but who?

Then an inspiration came and under its goad Wiley almost cursed aloud. That girl, again! He recalled Vernon's swift, unaccountable championship of his cousin at the club an hour before. That was the answer, of course! The young cub had double-crossed him and placed himself in Willa's hands—and incidentally landed his erstwhile tyrant in the same position.

So be it. He would carry the game into the enemy's camp and then, if necessary, arbitrate. Wiley had fought many duels with the fair sex, but never a financial one before, and the prospect was not without an element of sport. She had outwitted him at the start and borne off the spoils, but he would wrest them from her, and tame her into the bargain.

The morning dawned clear and crisply cold, and Willa started upon her early gallop in the Park with every nerve a-tingle and the blood racing in her veins. Her perplexities were forgotten, her slow, waiting game put aside and she gave herself up joyously to the influences of the hour. After all, it was good to be alive!

Her mount was fresh, but she rode him hard until she had taken the edge off his spirits and he was willing enough to drop into the easy, loping canter for which she had originally chosen him from her cousins' stable.

Her clear, pale cheeks bore an unwonted flush and her eyes were dancing when she came face to face with Starr Wiley around a bend in the bridle path. Willa would have passed him with a gay little nod, but he reined in his horse and, wheeling, fell into pace beside her.

"May I take the trail for a little way with you?" he asked. "Glorious morning, isn't it?"

"Yes." She smiled, but the brightness had fled from her face and her eyes narrowed as she gave him a side-long glance. "I didn't know you were given to an appreciation of them, though. What brings you out so early?"

"Do you want a confession? It was with the hope of meeting you that I came. One can see you alone so seldom in these crowded days, and I want to grasp every opportunity. Can you blame me?"

"Your judgment, perhaps. My cousin is a far more attractive spectacle than I, Mr. Wiley."

"Still unkind!" he exclaimed ruefully. "I have told you, I have explained and you will not believe me? Willa, you cannot have forgotten the other evening, you know what I feel toward you. You permitted me to tell you and you said that at least I might hope. Don't taunt me, dear! It's scarcely fair, is it?"

"I gave you no assurance, Mr. Wiley." Her eyes opened very wide upon him. "You were well supplied with that. I was careful not to commit myself in any way, if you remember. You were in my cousin's house and I listened to learn just how far your effrontery would carry you. It was scarcely an open game, I admit, but it was your deal and you weren't playing exactly fair yourself, were you?"

"I was sincere." His voice shook, but not with tenderness. "You led me on; you played with me from the first!"

"On the contrary, I refused to play with you at all, but you would not be convinced. Let us understand each other, Mr. Wiley. Your protestations are distasteful to me, and there is no longer need of pretense between us. I will be civil when occasion requires, but friendship between us would be an impossibility, and I beg that you will not force me to be more rude to you than you have made necessary now."

"So," he remarked quietly. "We have done with pretense, have we? I will meet your frankness, then. I have offered you all that a man can offer a woman in devotion, but you have thrust it from you. Now I have another kind of a proposition to discuss with you, and I am prepared to offer terms. I want to know where you have secreted Tia Juana; I want an interview with her. If she, of her own volition, refers me to you as I anticipate and gives you power of attorney to act for her, we can perhaps come to an agreement which will be to our mutual advantage."

"That sounds interesting," Willa remarked. "What makes you think I know where Tia Juana is?"

"I thought we had done with pretense?" he reminded her. "I know of the little house on the Parkway, and the beautiful rich young lady who hired it and installed the fierce old Spanish woman and the hunchback there. I know, too, of their hasty departure, and all that happened before in Mexico. You played a very shrewd game, my dear Miss Murdaugh, but your disinterested charity toward Tia Juana is open to question; a legal question, perhaps, if it comes to that, involving undue influence and a dummy title."

"Assuming that I know what you are talking about, don't you think you are taking a great deal for granted?" asked Willa. "I do not admit that I know where Tia Juana is, but in the event that you discover her, what assurance have you that she will receive you? There is a strain of Indian in her blood as well as Spanish. She does not forget, and do you think your treatment of Jose would inspire her with any confidence in your good faith or with any desire to deal with you except in retribution?"

"Nevertheless, she is the principal I intend to interview. You give me no credentials as her authorized agent, and whether she cares to deal with me or not is a matter I mean to put to the test. It lies between her and me, and I fancy I shall have no difficulty in opening her eyes to much that will be to her advantage, to which she has been kept heretofore in the dark."

"Would you, if you could? I doubt it. However, by all means make your proposition to her when you have found her, Mr. Wiley. That's the first thing, isn't it? You can't hazard your bet until you have picked your number, can you?" Whimsically, she imitated the croupier's sing-song whine "Make your play, gentlemen! The wheel is about to spin!"

"You vixen!" he muttered wrathfully. Then he controlled himself with an almost visible effort and half turned in his saddle. "Will you permit me to give you a bit of purely disinterested advice? Don't go in for the financial game on your own; you are bound to lose. In your proper sphere you are invincible, but it is a social one. When you pit yourself against men in a contest for financial supremacy your chief weapon, that of sex, is turned against you. Make no mistake! I shall find Tia Juana, I shall obtain her order to treat with you, and you will come to an agreement with me on my own terms. You cannot afford to reject them if you would. You have not the slightest inkling of their nature now, that is a card I am holding in reserve, but when you learn what an indemnity you will be called upon to pay in the event of a refusal, you will jump at the bargain, my dear Billie."

He uttered the old name deliberately, and she flushed.

"I am Willa Murdaugh, if you don't mind."

"Are you?" he asked significantly. "The clock struck twelve for another Cinderella, you may remember, and all the jewels and gorgeous apparel disappeared, as well as the pumpkin coach. I doubt if there would be a fallen slipper or a fairy prince to put it on again if the old story came to be rewritten to-day."

"What do you mean?" Willa turned to him, startled in spite of herself.

He shrugged.

"I will tell you when the time comes to drive our bargain, and I have an idea that it will not be deferred long. You cannot conceal Tia Juana indefinitely, and I shall have more able tools to aid me in my search than the one you so cleverly removed a day or two ago."

"I?" Willa's tone was mechanical, her thoughts centered on his implied threat and what it might portend. "What tool?"

"Vernon," he responded tersely. "He is to be congratulated on his fortunate choice of a confidante. When he told you of our visit to the empty house, close on your heels——"

"You weren't; you were just over my head!" she retorted. "Vernon told me nothing. It was unnecessary, because I heard it all. I scarcely listened, though, for it reminded me so forcibly of another secret interview of yours that my mind wandered. It was a much more significant occasion, Mr. Wiley, with results so far-reaching that they have not yet culminated."

"Indeed?" He frowned. "I must confess I don't recall——"

"It was an interview at night, out in the open, beneath the stars!" Her voice trembled with sudden passion. "It took place near a garage, and you did not know a listener crouched in the shrubbery. The man you met and bargained with there was Juan de Soria, agent of El Negrito, and the next night El Negrito himself came down from the hills! What price did you pay for that raid, Mr. Wiley; that raid which was to force United States intervention and protection of the leases of its citizens, yours in particular?"

"You are mad!" he cried hoarsely, but she would not be silenced.

"What did you pay in pesos for that slaughter? What will you yet be called upon to pay in vengeance by those who were spared? Don't be too confident of success in your bargaining, Mr. Wiley, until the final reckoning!"

For a moment there was silence, then with an obvious effort he laughed harshly.

"You are disposed to be highly melodramatic, my dear Billie, but unfortunately your attitude is without justification. No such interview as you describe took place. I suppose it is useless for me to assure you of this, but it must have existed solely in the imagination of your informant—if you had such an informant! I will leave you now, but I beg that you will reflect upon the bargain I have offered you. Wild accusations will not serve to turn the point at issue, and for your own sake I advise you to think well. Au revoir!"

He bent to the saddle in a mocking obeisance and his horse leaped forward beneath the touch of the spurs.

Willa watched until he had disappeared between the leafless trees, then slowly moved off down a side-path.

She had warned him now. Her cards were on the table and he knew the strength of the hand she held against him. But what of his own? To what length would he, could he go in the contest which from that moment would be to the death between them? What did his vague threat mean?



CHAPTER XIV

THE KNIGHT ERRANT ONCE MORE

"We'll be late," Angie observed as she and Willa waited in the drawing-room for the rest of the family. It was the first remark she had voluntarily addressed to her cousin since she had come upon the tete-a-tete in the library. "Not that I care, of course, these dinners are always stupid, but the Erskines are so horribly particular. I've heard that the Bishop was late once and they went in without him."

Willa smiled.

"I wonder who will be there?"

"The same old crowd, I suppose," Angie shrugged. "For heaven's sake, Willa, if they send you in again with Harrington Chase, don't monopolize him as you did at the Wadleighs'. It's horribly bad form; I wonder that mother didn't tell you."

"Did I monopolize him? I wasn't conscious of it," Willa said reflectively. "He interests me."

"Evidently!" Angie sneered. "So do a few others, I imagine, but you shouldn't show it so plainly. I admit that you've gotten on very well so far, but your methods are horribly crude, still."

"My methods?" Willa was honestly puzzled. "I wasn't aware that I had any. When people bore me I let them alone; but those I find interesting for one reason or another I listen to. Is it crude to discriminate?"

Angie bit her lip.

"You can be very simple and naive when you want to!" she burst out. "But do reserve it for outsiders, and spare us! I know you for what you are: sly and sneaking and mean! Your cheap, common little airs and graces don't deceive me, they only disgust me more and more! I wish Mr. North had left you where he found you, with your gamblers and horse-thieves and roustabouts!"

"So do I," Willa retorted frankly. "They were men, anyway. You are unjust because you are hurt, and I am sorry for you. I wish you could understand, but I am afraid you will not believe me. Mr. Wiley——"

"Will you kindly leave his name out of this discussion?" demanded Angie. "I am not in the least jealous, I assure you! He is nothing to me, I merely object to the underhand way you maneuvered to receive him alone. That sort of thing may be all right where you came from, but it is a little bit too raw to put in practice here."

The appearance of the others brought the quarrel to a close and they went out to the waiting limousine in a constrained silence. Mrs. Halstead glanced from her daughter's flushed face to Willa's pale one, and her lips tightened. Had Angie been foolish enough to betray herself to this interloper?

Willa was sincerely distressed. There had never been any real congeniality between the two girls, but her heart ached for the other's evident suffering. Her own conscience was not quite clear for she had permitted Wiley to show his hand without stopping to think of Angie, so determined had she been to learn the depths to which this man would descend in his ruthless self-seeking. She had weighed her cousin shrewdly and she did not believe her capable of deep and lasting affection, yet she shuddered at the thought of any girl's heart in Starr Wiley's keeping.

They were late, as Angie had prophesied. The Erskine drawing-room was crowded, and Willa stared about blankly, her mind still burdened with her cousin's resentment. Then all at once she became conscious of a tall figure which disengaged itself from a nearby group and came eagerly forward.

Mechanically she held out her hand, and a voice sounded in her ears which drove all else from her thoughts and sent the hot-blood flooding her cheeks and neck in a crimson tide.

"We meet again, Miss Murdaugh. I told you that it would be soon!"

She found herself looking up into Kearn Thode's eyes, and the wonder of it held her dumb. As unconscious as a child of the instinctive movement, she extended both hands, and he caught and pressed them tightly for a moment before releasing them.

"Mr. Thode! I had almost given up hope." The words sprang to her lips. "I thought you would come before and I used to look about for you everywhere we went at first. It was silly, of course, for I knew that you had your work to do down there, but it would have been nice to see a really familiar face."

The young engineer, too, flushed.

"I meant to come before, but I was delayed——" He broke off. "Was it so awful then, the first plunge? May I remind you that you have fulfilled my prophecy? Just to look at you now makes me half believe those Limasito days were a dream!"

"They're still real to me," Willa said gravely. "They are the only real things and real people I have known. All this up here—oh! it's very pleasant, of course, and new and amusing, but it doesn't reach deep down. It doesn't seem to mean anything."

"So soon?" He raised his eyebrows in whimsical dismay. "My sister wrote me of your success and I was very glad. I knew it would not change you, but I did not think the glamour would wear off so quickly."

"Your sister?" Willa cried. "I'm so sorry that I only met her once. She dined with us, but since then I have not seen her. I should like to have known her better."

"She called twice, but you were not at home. After that she went South and she has only just returned. May I bring her to call to-morrow?"

"I shall be delighted," Willa paused, regarding him with a little, puzzled frown. "Do you know you have changed, somehow, Mr. Thode? You are ever so much thinner, and pale beneath your tan, and you look—oh, almost as if you had been suffering! Am I imagining things, or have you been ill?"

"I had an accident just after you left Limasito. It was nothing serious, just a slight concussion, but it laid me up for some weeks," Thode replied easily. "That is what delayed my work and prevented my return before."

He looked beyond her as he spoke, and his face darkened swiftly. Willa, noting the transition, glanced over her shoulder to see Starr Wiley, smiling and urbane, standing just within the doorway.

"Another reminder of Limasito," she remarked. "A most unwelcome one. But tell me about your accident. I am so sorry——"

His hostess claimed Thode at that juncture and bore him away to fresh introductions, and Willa started across the room to Mrs. Halstead when Starr Wiley intercepted her coolly.

"How do you do?" he asked. Then, without waiting for her reply, he went on: "But that is a superfluous question, isn't it? You are looking as distractingly charming as ever. So our knight errant has put in an appearance once more! He looks a little the worse for wear."

"Mr. Thode has been ill," Willa remarked through stiffened lips. "There was an accident——"

"A hootch bottle in the hands of a jealous Senorita becomes an effective weapon, but I would call it more like fate than accident." Wiley laughed unpleasantly. "There were some interesting rumors afloat about our friend's conquests after your departure from Limasito. He'd be an expert porch-climber if his practice in gaining access to certain balconies on certain back streets counted for anything. I could have told you before, but I did not want to shatter your illusions concerning the local Paul Revere."

"You are trying to now, however." Willa looked straight into his eyes and then quickly away in immeasurable disdain. "I have no ears for idle, malicious slander, Mr. Wiley. Please, let me pass."

"It does rather jar on one, doesn't it? A reminder of the low, primitive life down there is out of place in this highly esthetic atmosphere." He made no move to step aside, and a shade of deeper meaning crept into his tones. "It would be a pity if one were compelled to return to it. The charms of Limasito would pall, I fancy, after all this; yet such things sometimes happen."

"I trust not, for your sake," Willa responded. "You would scarcely find the climate of Limasito a healthy one, if your activities were fully comprehended there."

"I was not thinking of myself——" he smiled once more—"but of an old fairy tale which I mentioned to you in the Park. You look a very confident Cinderella, but midnight is not far off, and only you can stop the hands of the clock, remember."

"I am not fond of riddles." Willa shrugged and turned away to greet her host, who came forward with one of the inevitable callow youths in tow.

Dinner was announced almost immediately and Willa sat through it with the food untouched before her. Wiley's insinuations against Kearn Thode she had dismissed utterly from her thoughts, but his renewed taunt of the morning filled her in spite of herself with dread foreboding. Could fate have indeed been playing with her after all, and was it possible that Wiley held within his hands the strings of her future destiny?

She was Willa Murdaugh, of course. Mason North and the Halsteads had satisfied themselves of that beyond a shadow of a doubt. But what if Wiley had really stumbled upon some facts unknown to them all which might throw a shadow across her title? Was it an idle threat to coerce her or a very tangible menace?

She raised troubled eyes to meet Kearn Thode's smiling ones across the table and her native courage came back in a swift rush. Surely she had nothing to fear; she would meet Wiley and beat him at his own game, and then . . . she smiled again into Thode's eyes. What did anything else matter, now that he had returned?

An informal dance was the order of the evening and Willa and the young engineer gravitated to a seat on the stairs after a romping fox-trot. Both were flushed and sparkling, but when they found themselves alone together a diffident silence fell upon them.

"It must seem good to you to get back," Willa ventured at last when the pause had become oppressive.

"It is." His glance rested upon her with a world of contentment. "I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it seems!"

"And your work down there?" she pursued hurriedly. "You have finished it? You will not have to return again?"

The contentment faded and in its place there came a look of bitterness and dogged determination.

"It has scarcely begun. I wonder if you ever heard an old legend around Limasito concerning the lost location of a marvelous oil well?"

Willa laughed nervously, a little taken aback by the abruptness of the question.

"One hears so many legends in every country of lost or buried or hidden treasure," she parried. "Scarcely anyone pays attention to them except the tenderfoots. You know up in the mining country one is forever hearing such tales of vast deposits of ore, but nobody can ever find the lead."

"This particular one concerns a well in a mysterious pool of water where a massacre is supposed to have taken place. It dates back to the time of the Spaniards' coming."

He paused, but Willa said nothing. She was striving to mask her thoughts in continued composure lest his quick mind grasp the significance of her interest.

"The place is spoken of as the Pool of the Lost Souls," Thode went on. "Surely you have heard of it? The people to whom you were so kind, old Tia Juana and her grandson, knew more than anyone else about it. Did they not mention it to you?"

"Tia Juana?" Willa glanced up quickly, but she could not meet his eyes. "She is very secretive, you know, and jealous of the old legends which to her form the sacred history of her beloved country. Suppose you tell me the legend yourself."

Briefly he recounted it to her and, she listened until the end in a dismayed chaos of mind which culminated in a staggering blow.

"I have found it." There was no jubilation in his tone, but paradoxically a note of defeat.

"You!" she stammered breathlessly.

"Yes. You seem surprised?" he added with a quick glance at her. "I know these old legends are mostly regarded as bunk, but now and then one proves to be a straight tip. Generations have searched vainly for the Pool, as I thought you must have heard, but they did not know where to look."

"Then how did you, a newcomer, discover it?" Willa scarcely recognized her own voice.

"By the simple expedient of following someone else who had stolen a march on me in a despicable fashion." His jaw set in the old characteristic way she remembered. "I don't mind admitting that I would have taken almost any means to locate it; that was my main objective in Mexico and I was acting under instructions from my chief. But I would scarcely have stooped to the method employed by the man of whom I speak."

"Starr Wiley?" The question was wrung from Willa's lips.

He stared at her.

"You know, then?"

"I—I guessed," she countered hurriedly. "I knew that you two were enemies, of course, and it came to me that if anyone had played a false trick upon you it must have been he. You say you found the Pool by following him. How did he know where to search?"

Thode hesitated.

"I found a map of its location, but I had scarcely got my hands upon it when I was struck down from behind and the paper stolen."

Willa uttered a startled exclamation, but he continued, unheeding.

"Someone found me, hours later, lying unconscious and carried me into Limasito, where your good friend, Jim Baggott, took care of me. It was weeks before I was able to be about again, but I had time to think it all out, Of course, I had not seen my assailant, but I had had an uncanny intuition all day that I was being shadowed—it was the very day of your departure, by the way—and I knew of only one other beside myself who had taken that legend seriously. Wiley was doing his best to locate the Pool; he was aware that I was there for the same purpose and he would have stopped at nothing to win out, for, as you know, there was bad blood between us. If he did not actually strike the blow that felled me I solemnly believe that he was instrumental in it in some way. Please, don't think me ungenerous toward an enemy that I tell you this, or even harbor such a thought, but events really seemed to bear out my suspicions."

"No." Willa was gazing moodily straight before her. "I do not think you are ungenerous, and I am very glad that you are telling me. I believe, too, that you are right; I feel sure that he must have been responsible for your injury. But I am amazed about the map."

"I found it in the ashes of Tia Juana's fire; the little fire in the grove of zapote trees where she cooked her tortillas, and brewed her strange concoctions. You had told me of it, do you remember? But perhaps you have not heard: Tia Juana and the boy, Jose, have disappeared. They must have gone on the very day you started for New York, and no one has been able to discover a trace of them, except one. That is a very significant trace indeed, though.—Have you no curiosity about the Pool?"

He turned to her suddenly, but Willa could not raise her eyes to meet his now.

"Of course," she stammered.

"It is located on a grapefruit ranch known as the Trevino hacienda, about two hundred miles due north of Limasito. Wiley made the best of his time while I was laid by the heels, but his treachery didn't do him any good, in the end. He found the Pool, but another had been before him; old Tia Juana, herself!"

Willa's lips moved, but no sound came from them. She was praying that he would not look at her again.

"A few days before Tia Juana and the boy disappeared, the Trevino hacienda changed hands. It was sold for twenty-five thousand dollars, to one Juana Reyes.—Reyes, if you recall, was the name of the old Spaniard who owned the Pool originally and whose daughter, Dolores, was killed by the Indians on her wedding night. Reyes is also the almost forgotten surname of Tia Juana, so it looks as if the old lady had come into her own, at last. It is a mystery, of course, where she got the money to purchase the hacienda, but it may have been hoarded in her family for generations. It is possible, too, that she only then succeeded in deciphering the map, and tracing the location of the Pool from it."

"So you and Starr Wiley both failed." Willa spoke as if to herself.

"Not I!" Thode's eyes flashed with determination. "I told you I had only just begun. I am going to find Tia Juana if she is above ground and buy out her claim. To her it only means the ancestral estate. That is much, to be sure, if she has gone through her long life in poverty and want in order to hoard her riches for its purchase, but it is only a sentimental consideration. When she learns that she has a fortune in petroleum, worthless without the money to develop it, I think she will agree to share her interest. The casa and the land about it can still be hers, we only want to drain and develop the Pool, and my chief will be strictly fair with her. The old lady will be rich beyond her wildest dreams and we will have the greatest producer known since the Dos Bocas gusher went up in flames!"

Willa rose.

"If you find Tia Juana, Mr. Thode, don't build your hopes too high. Should she prove to be indeed the owner of the Pool of the Lost Souls, I am confident that you can never gain possession of it."

"I can try." He took the hand she held out to him. "You seem very sure, Miss Murdaugh."

"I cannot imagine Tia Juana relinquishing anything which she could claim, especially if, as you surmise, the property may once have belonged to her ancestors. Cousin Irene is signaling me. I must go!" she added. "You will come to-morrow?"

Thode promised, but he watched her slender figure disappear with a frown of troubled thought. How much did she know? Could it be that she, too, was interested in the Pool of the Lost Souls? Instead of a mere contest between himself and Wiley had it become a three-corner affair, with Willa the apex of the triangle?

Had he but known it, he was destined not to keep his promise of the morrow, and once more it was Starr Wiley who intervened.

It happened that Thode stopped in at the club after taking leave of the Erskines, and arrived at a most opportune moment. He was emerging from the coat-room when a familiar voice came to his ears through the half-open door of one of the smaller card-rooms, and the words arrested him like a command.

"The little Murdaugh? Very naive, very charming, but I knew her in the Never-Never Land, you know, and I can assure you she's not as unsophisticated as she seems."

"Oh, come, Starr! You're tight!" a strange voice intervened. "Ladies' names, you know——it's not done here."

"'Lady'?" Wiley hiccoughed derisively. "Who mentioned a lady? I'm speakin' of Willa Murdaugh. Gentleman Geoff's Billie they used to call her; pet of an old card-sharp, and mascot of a gambling-hell——"

He got no farther. Someone had seized him by the shoulders and spun him around like a top and he found himself confronting Kearn Thode's blazing eyes. His half-fuddled companions shrank back in consternation.

"Take that back, you miserable cur!" Thode's voice was scarcely recognizable. "Take back your damnable lies or I'll ram them down your throat!"

But an alcoholic courage possessed Wiley and he leered: "The knight-errant, by Jove! You know whether it's true or not! You ought to know better than anyone else——"

A crashing blow straight on his maudlin mouth sent him reeling back against the table. His wildly groping hand found a tall glass and with an oath he hurled it full in the face of the man advancing upon him. A moment later, he was lifted clear of the table by an impact that flung him against the wall a sodden, inert heap with the last ray of dazed consciousness gone.



CHAPTER XV

GONE

A metamorphosis had taken place in Vernon Halstead. He was distrait and mooned about the house, getting in people's way and apologizing with an air of such profound abstraction that the family were moved to comment.

"I think Vernon must be ill." This from his mother. "The poor dear boy seems very pale and hollow-eyed. Haven't you noticed it, Ripley?"

"I've noticed that he looks as if someone had given him a jolt that he hadn't yet recovered from," her husband retorted. "Maybe he's waking up and getting on to himself at last. It's high time! It would give anyone a shock to find they'd been wasting the best years of their lives——"

"You were never sympathetic with his sensitive highly-strung temperament——"

"'Temperament,' Irene? He's about as temperamental as an army tank!" Ripley added more mildly: "I don't say there's no good in the boy, but it needs waking up. He asked me last night about a course in petroleum engineering, like young Thode, and that's a promising sign. I wish I felt as easy in my mind about Willa."

"I wash my hands of her." Mrs. Halstead shrugged coldly. "It was to be supposed that she would be quite impossible, coming from such an environment, but I fancied at least that she would want to advance herself. She cares nothing for making acquaintances or getting in with the right people and hasn't the slightest conception of the importance of establishing herself. If I had the proper authority over her it would be vastly different, but you and Mason——"

"We haven't it ourselves," her husband reminded her. "We've got to accept her on her own terms or not at all, it seems. She has too much principle to get herself into disgrace, I am confident on that score, but she has such ultra-democratic ideas that I am afraid she may lay herself open to comment. Have you heard anything, Irene, about a—a gray car?"

"What is that?" Mrs. Halstead sat up very straight. "I've been expecting trouble from her absurd independence, but you know my position. What about a gray car?"

"Nothing much." Ripley looked decidedly uncomfortable. "You are not to mention it to her, Irene, remember. Mason spoke of it and it's up to him to take care of it, but I thought you might keep your eyes open. Mason has an idea that he has seen her more than once running around town in a fast little gray car with a mighty good-looking chauffeur. He's near-sighted and he asked me to find out about it."

"I know nothing of it!" his wife said bitterly. "An elopement with a person of that sort is quite within the possibilities, Ripley. I will watch, of course, but what good will it do? I have tried to guard her, and been insulted for my pains. If I had my way, I should lock her in her room until I brought her to terms.—A chauffeur, indeed! Really, Uncle Giles' money is scarcely worth the strain, and now with poor Vernon acting so strangely, and you so unsympathetic, it is a wonder I am not down with nervous prostration!"

On the morning after the Erskine affair, however, Vernon came in at lunch time with a cheerful air of suppressed but pleasurable excitement which nullified the effect of his former solemnity.

After the meal was over, he drew Willa mysteriously into the library, and shut the door.

"Say! I've simply got to tell you! I don't peddle club gossip as a rule, but this is to good to keep. Starr got his last night!"

"What do you mean?" Willa cried. "He's not——"

"Not dead, you want to say? No, it isn't as good as that, but he got the thrashing of his life and his beauty is pretty well spoiled. Gad, if I'd only been there to see it!"

Willa turned a shade more white.

"Who—did it?" Her voice was a mere whisper.

"Kearn Thode. He is pretty well cut up about the face himself, for of course Starr didn't put up his fists like a man; he threw glassware."

"Oh, is he badly hurt?" Willa caught at her surprised informant's arm in sudden dread. "Is Mr. Thode——"

"Hello! What's the tragic idea? Of course he's not; but you ought to see Starr! The fellows say it was all over in about two seconds, but it must have been great while it lasted!"

"Where—where did it occur?" she asked faintly.

"Right in the club, of all places in the world! The board of governors got together this morning like ducks in a thunderstorm and held a special meeting. Of course, they're both suspended until the board can get hold of the facts, but it's a pretty general opinion that Starr will be asked for his resignation. Nobody seems to know what the row was about, or else they are all keeping mum, but Starr must have said something rather average awful. The only name he called Thode, though, as far as I can make out, was 'knight-errant'."

Willa turned away to hide a sudden trembling.

"That isn't so terrible, is it?" she stammered.

"Silly word to start anything! But you never can tell what's back of it with Starr——"

"Excuse me, Miss. Note for you by messenger." Welsh stood in the doorway.

Willa took the envelope from the salver the butler presented. The superscription was in an unknown hand, but a swift intuition came to her as she broke the seal.

"My dear Miss Murdaugh," she read silently.

"Will you believe me when I tell you that I am more than sorry I shall not be able to come to you to-day? I was caught in an annoying but superficial motor smash-up last night and the broken windshield has made a bizarre spectacle of me, but I shall be my normal self again in a few days. My sister, Mrs. Beekman, will call to-morrow and I shall present my apologies in person at the earliest possible moment, if I may.

"Very sincerely and regretfully,

"KEARN THODE."

Willa mused so long that Welsh finally asked, with a deferential cough:

"Any answer, Miss? The messenger is waiting to know."

"No.—Yes! Just a moment!"

She seated herself at the desk and wrote rapidly:

"My Dear Mr. Thode;

"I am deeply sorry to learn of your motor accident. Knights-errant rode on chargers in the old days, I believe, but the spirit remains the same, doesn't it? I scorned it once to my shame, but it is a spirit for which I am now profoundly grateful. Come to me when you can; I shall be at home.

"Hasta la vista,

"WILLA MURDAUGH."

"Well, for the love of Pete!" Vernon exploded, when the butler had withdrawn. "You're blushing like a June rose! Willa, are you holding out on us? Have you a steady you are keeping company with, unbeknownst?"

"Don't be absurd, Vernon!" She dimpled, in spite of herself. "That was only from Mr. Thode. He was going to call this afternoon with his sister, but he can't. He's had a slight motor accident."

"Then Starr must have met a steam-roller!" Vernon stopped, and added in sudden suspicion: "I say, you didn't give me away? You didn't mention——?"

"I?" Willa's eyes widened demurely. "I expressed polite regret, of course. What have I to do with motor accidents?"

"Nothing, I hope, if you go slow," Vernon hesitated. "I don't want to butt in, Willa, but I'd like to give you a hint, if you don't mind. Gray cars are not invisible."