me quite serious at times. I wonder if you are
overanxious?"

"She is better--much better!" Ella answered, and added with a sudden
burst of fiercest, white-hot passion: "But I think it would be better if
we had both died before we met you."

She hurried away, for she was afraid of breaking down, and Deede Dawson
smiled the more as he again turned his attention to his chessmen, taking
them up and putting them down in turn.

"She's turning nasty," he mused. "I don't think she'll dare--but she
might. She's only a pawn, but a pawn can cause a lot of trouble
at times--a pawn may become a queen and give the mate. When a pawn
threatens trouble it's best to--remove it."

He went out and came back a little late and busied himself with a
four-move chess problem which absorbed all his attention, and which
he did not solve to his satisfaction till past midnight. Then he went
upstairs to bed, but at the door of his room he paused and went on very
softly up the narrow stairs that led to the attics above.

Outside the one in which Dunn slept, he waited a little till the
unbroken sound of regular breathing from within assured him that the
occupant slept.

Cautiously and carefully he crept on, and entered the one adjoining,
where he turned the light of the electric flashlight he carried on a
large, empty packing-case that stood in one corner.

With a two-foot rule he took from his pocket he measured it carefully
and nodded with great satisfaction.

"A little smaller than the other," he said to himself. "But, then, it
hasn't got to hold so much." He laughed in his silent, mirthless way, as
at something that amused him. "A good deal less," he thought. "And Dunn
shall drive."

He laughed again, and for a moment or two stood there in the darkness,
laughing silently to himself, and then, speaking aloud, he called out:

"You can come in, Dunn."

Dunn, whom a creaking board had betrayed, came forward unconcernedly in
his sleeping attire.

"I saw it was you," he remarked. "At first I thought something was
wrong."

"Nothing, nothing," answered Deede Dawson. "I was only looking at this
packing-case. I may have to send one away again soon, and I wanted to be
sure this was big enough. If I do, I shall want you to drive."

"Not Miss Cayley?" asked Dunn.

"No, no," answered Deede Dawson. "She might be with you perhaps, but she
wouldn't drive. Night driving is always dangerous, I think, don't you?"

"There's things more dangerous,