kful. I--I can't
give up the control of my own money, for I may have to use it. It's
really mine, Dad gave it to me, and I'm not going to have to ask for it
when I want it, or explain what I want it for. If you try to take it
from me, I'll have to fight for it. Everyone in Limasito will back me
up, and the law down there is on their side and mine, remember.
Everything else is in your hands and I am grateful to you for taking
care of it, but Dad's money isn't part of the Murdaugh outfit, and I
mean to keep it for myself."

No further argument could avail to move her an iota from her position
and the matter perforce rested, but when the two men were alone
together, Ripley Halstead looked at his attorney with a troubled
question in his eyes.

North nodded solemnly.

"It's blackmail!" he announced. "She's paying hush-money to someone
and planning flight if the truth, whatever it may be, is discovered.
Why else would she insist on retaining control of the money she
considers peculiarly her own? I thought I had learned every detail of
the past, and that her life was an open book, but you never can tell.
There may have been some foolish romance or entanglement--"

"No." Halsted shook his head. "You're on the wrong track there, I'm
sure of it. Willa is too high-minded to compromise herself, and
level-headed enough to be safe from sentimental folly under any
circumstances. If she had become involved in any difficulty, you can
bank on it that she would come out with the truth, straight from the
shoulder; she would be the last person in the world to allow herself to
be intimidated. She may be being bled through pity or a mistaken sense
of loyalty, but I don't see what we can do now to stop it."

"The first step will be to discover what her game is." The attorney
chuckled ruefully. "To use her own parlance, Ripley, that young woman
called my bluff, and her cards are high. Litigation would be a
wearisome business and we couldn't buck her crowd down there. She'd
have the executor, Baggott, appointed as trustee of the old gambler's
estate, and he would be wax in her hands. We can only watch her, and
try to prevent her doing anything foolishly quixotic."

The next day Willa paid her first visit to a famous modiste in Mrs.
Halstead's company, and returned exhausted but impressed. The latent
feminine instinct for adornment had taken possession of her and through
the long evening she dreamed in a hazy rapture. The