"Did he say where this was to take place?"

"No. He tried to get me to write you to meet me at some place he
named. He said I needn't go there, just get you to come. I told him I
would. When he went to sleep I telephoned you because I was so
frightened. To-day we had a terrible quarrel. I refused to write to
you to meet me at the place he named."

Her terror was so evident that her words were not necessary to add
conviction.

McCarthy laughed a short, rasping laugh.

"It's a good joke on him," he explained. "If he and his thugs are
hunting for me all over the city and I here in his own home, safe; the
last place he would look for me."

"You mustn't wait," she urged anxiously. "You mustn't wait here,
Larry. He is drinking and I do not know what he might do if he came
home and found you here. You must go now."

"I'll run back to the hotel and pick up my bodyguard, Swanson," he said
steadily, and with an attempt at indifference of manner, "I think I'll
be safe."

"You'll kiss me goodbye, Larry," she pleaded. "She wouldn't care--if
she knew."

"She?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

He was astonished and curious to learn how the girl knew anything of
his growing regard for Betty Tabor.

"I knew, I knew," she repeated. "I knew it the first time we met--I
knew there was another girl"----

"I'm certain I did not hint at such a thing," he replied with an
attempt at dignified bearing. "I have not even told her."

"Good-bye," she said. "I hope you're happy, Larry, and please don't
think I meant to do wrong."

She clung to him weeping until he put away her hands and went out. The
girl threw herself face downward upon the lounge and sobbed, this time
from a sense of loneliness and perhaps of loss.

McCarthy descended the stairs and walked rapidly through the darkened
lawn to the street. In spite of his pretense of believing there was no
danger he found himself nervous. He walked two blocks toward the
street car line, when a taxicab swerved toward the sidewalk.

"Taxi, sir, taxi?" asked the driver. "Take you downtown, sir?"

McCarthy hesitated an instant. If he hurried back to the hotel and
found Swanson he would rid himself of the nervous dread of something
intangible which he could not explain.

"How much downtown?" he asked, stopping near the taxicab, which had
come to a full stop.

"Take you down for half rates, sir; I'm going that way."

"Very well," said McCarthy.

He walked to the