marriage from a wild, immoral
impulse. He pitied her because she was what she was--a wanton who was
determined by scheme and wile to gain her ends. And he shrewdly
suspected that she was not so much concerned for her reputation as she
was eager to achieve what she had determined upon. Defeat to her kind is
intolerable.

"Gary Warden will never marry me if he discovers that I have been here,"
declared Della from the corner.

"You said you did not love Warden, Miss Wharton," Lawler reminded her.
"You wouldn't marry a man you merely liked, would you?"

"We have been engaged for a year. Certainly, I shall marry him. Why not?
But he won't have me, now!"

"Does Warden love you, Miss Wharton?"

"That doesn't concern you!" she snapped.

"No--not in the least. But if Warden loves you, and I went to him and
explained that your being here was accidental----"

"Bah!" she sneered; "you're a fool, Lawler! Do you expect Gary Warden
would swallow _that_! You don't know him!"

"Well," said Lawler, gently; "he need not know. If you are afraid to
face public opinion, to show by your actions that you have nothing to be
ashamed of, I'll take you to the Circle L, just as soon as we can get
through. We'll time ourselves to get there at night. No one need know,
and you can tell Warden that you were caught in the storm and drifted to
the Circle L, where you stayed with my mother. I can come back here and
no one will ever know the difference."

"I don't want to see your mother!" she sneered. "I'd be afraid she would
be something like you! Ugh! I hate you!"

"There is only one other way," smiled Lawler. "I know Keller, the owner
of the Willets Hotel, very intimately. I can take you there, at
night--after the storm breaks. No one need know. You can say you were at
the hotel all the time. And Keller will support your word."

"I presume I shall have to go to Willets--since I have to lie!" she
said, wrathfully.

"Yes," said Lawler incisively; "it takes courage to be truthful, Miss
Wharton. But if a person always tells the truth----"

"Shut up!" she said savagely; "you make me sick!" She glared malignantly
at him. "Ugh, I positively loathe you! I must have been crazy when I
thought I saw something in you!" She paused for an instant to get her
breath, and then she resumed, vindictively:

"I hope they arrest you for killing those two men--Link and Givens. I
hope they hang you. And they will hang you, because you can't prove you
acted