as white, but set with grim accusation that was
only waiting to pronounce swift judgment. "Mr. Hunt, is it true that
Miss Cameron is this Maggie Carlisle the officer mentions, and that you
knew it all the while?"

"Yes--" began the painter.

"Don't blame him, Miss Sherwood," Larry interrupted. "He didn't tell you
because I begged him not to as a favor to me. Blame me for everything."

Her judgment upon Hunt was pronounced with cold finality, her eyes
straight into Hunt's: "Whatever may have been Mr. Hunt's motives, I
unalterably hold him to blame."

She turned upon Larry. The face which he had only seen in gracious moods
was as inflexibly stern as a prosecuting attorney's.

"We're going to go right to the bottom of this, Mr. Brainard. You
too have known all along that this Miss Cameron was really the Maggie
Carlisle this officer speaks of?"

"Yes."

"And you have known all along that she was the daughter of this
notorious criminal, Old Jimmie Carlisle?"

The impulse surged up in Larry to tell the newly learned truth about
Maggie. But he remembered Maggie's injunction that the truth must never
be known. He checked his revelation just in time.

"Yes."

"And is it true that Maggie Carlisle is herself what is known as a
crook?--or has had crooked inclinations or plans?"

"It's like this, Miss Sherwood--"

"A direct answer, please!"

"Yes."

"And is it true, as this officer has suggested, that you were in love
with her yourself?"

"Yes."

"You are aware of my brother's infatuation for her? That he has asked
her to marry him?"

"Yes."

Her voice now sounded more terrible to Larry. "I took you in to give you
a chance. And your repayment has been that, knowing all these things,
you have kept silent and let me and my brother be imposed upon by a
swindling operation. And who knows, since you admit that you love
the girl, that you have not been a partner in the conspiracy from the
first!"

"That's exactly the idea, Miss!" put in Gavegan.

Larry had foreseen many possible wrong turns which his plan might take,
but he was appalled by the utter unexpectedness of the actual disaster.
And yet he recognized that the evidence justified Miss Sherwood's
judgment of him. It all made him seem an ingrate and a swindler.

For the moment Larry was so overwhelmed that he made no attempt to
speak. And since for once Gavegan was content merely to gloat over his
triumph, there was stiff silence in the room until Miss S