e," he cried, pointing to the door.

"Don't breathe this air. Get out. I'm not bad yet--but it's smallpox,
Curtis!"

"I know it," said Philip, beginning to throw off his hood and coat.
"I'm not afraid of it. I had a touch of it three years ago over on the
Gray Buzzard, so I guess I'm immune. Besides, I've come two thousand
miles to see you, Peter God--two thousand miles to bring you a letter
from Josephine McCloud."

For ten seconds Peter God stood tense and motionless. Then he swayed
forward.

"A letter--for Peter God--from Josephine McCloud?" he gasped, and held
out his hands.

An hour later they sat facing each other--Peter God and Curtis. The
beginning of the scourge betrayed itself in the red flush of Peter
God's face, and the fever in his eyes. But he was calm. For many
minutes he had spoken in a quiet, even voice, and Philip Curtis sat
with scarcely a breath and a heart that at times had risen in his
throat to choke him. In his hand Peter God held the pages of the letter
he had read.

Now he went on:

"So I'm going to tell it all to you, Curtis--because I know that you
are a man. Josephine has left nothing out. She has told me of your
love, and of the reward she has promised you--if Peter God sends back a
certain word. She says frankly that she does not love you, but that she
honors you above all men--except her father, and one other. That other,
Curtis, is myself. Years ago the woman you love--was my wife."

Peter God put a hand to his head, as if to cool the fire that was
beginning to burn him up.

"Her name wasn't Mrs. Peter God," he went on, and a smile fought grimly
on his lips. "That's the one thing I won't tell you, Curtis--my name.
The story itself will be enough.

"Perhaps there were two other people in the world happier than we. I
doubt it. I got into politics. I made an enemy, a deadly enemy. He was
a blackmailer, a thief, the head of a political ring that lived on
graft. Through my efforts he was exposed, And then he laid for me--and
he got me.

"I must give him credit for doing it cleverly and completely. He set a
trap for me, and a woman helped him. I won't go into details. The trap
sprung, and it caught me. Even Josephine could not be made to believe
in my innocence; so cleverly was the trap set that my best friends
among the newspapers could find no excuse for me.

"I have never blamed Josephine for what she did after that. To all the
world, and most of all to her, I was caught re