arch. Three days had passed since
the disappearance of Tia Juana, and Willa decided despairingly that
should a week go by without news, she must go to the police and brave
the storm of notoriety and questioning from Mason North and the
Halsteads, which would mean the end of her cherished secrecy and hem
her in with a multitude of complications.

She lunched with Mrs. Beekman as she had promised, in the dingy
old-fashioned house on the Square which somehow gave the girl,
untutored as she was, an impression of aristocracy that the newer, more
ornate piles of stone farther up the Avenue had utterly failed to
convey. She was miserably aware that the other woman was making a
sympathetic effort to understand her and gain her friendship, yet the
thought of Tia Juana drove all else from her mind and she knew she was
creating a far from propitious impression.

An unaccountable shyness, too, took possession of her at the
possibility of meeting Kearn Thode beneath his sister's discerning eye,
and as soon as she could courteously do so, she tore herself away from
her disappointed hostess and went over the bridge to Jose.

The cripple's fever had abated, but he was still very weak. His little
hot hands clutched hers nervously and his big eyes seemed to burn into
hers as he asked in his own tongue:

"The Senorita has a friend whom she trusts?"

"Yes, Jose," responded Willa promptly. "Have you seen him?"

"He came this morning, and told me his name. He said I was to ask it
of you, and you would tell me the same."

"Is it 'Dan'?" She watched the thin face brighten.

"That was it! And am I to trust him, too?"

"You can tell him anything as you would me, amiguito, but remember, no
word of the Pool!"

"That is written, Senorita Billie, on my heart!--But will the grandmama
ever return?"

Willa soothed him as well as she was able, and, after a brief
conference with Senorita Rodriguez, took her departure.

A man was standing near the bottom of the steps, lighting a cigarette.
Her eyes rested upon him with no flash of recognition until he glanced
up and then with a slow smile tossed his cigarette into the gutter. It
was Starr Wiley.

His puffed, discolored lips stood out against the pasty whiteness of
his face with the grotesque effect of a mask and his eyes gleamed
malevolently, but he lifted his hat with the old airy insouciance.

"We meet again, my dear Billie!"

She bowed gravely, and made as if to pass him, but