hought than to be a crook. I never had an idea of using her
myself, till she began to look like such a good performer this last
year; and then my idea, no matter what Barney Palmer may have planned,
was to use her only in a couple of stunts. My main idea always was, when
you came out with your grand idea of what your girl had grown up to be,
for you suddenly to see your girl, and know her as your girl, and know
her to be a crook. That smash to you was the big thing to me--what I'd
planned for, and waited for. I didn't expect the blow-off to come like
this; I didn't expect to be caught in it when it did happen. But since
it has happened, well--There's your daughter, Joe Ellison! Look at her!
Look at what I've made her! I guess I'm even all right!"

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

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

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

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