leman blustered. "What's the meaning of this, anyway? What sort
of trumped-up game are you----?"

"Steady, Starr." Ripley Halstead interposed quietly, and turned to the
proprietor. "Will you state the nature of this meeting to which you
have called us, Mr. Baggott? We are waiting to learn."

"I'm waiting, too!" confessed Jim. "I've got my orders--gosh almighty!
Here she comes!"

Unheard, a single touring-car had slipped across the plaza and halted
before the entrance. A slim, girlish, heavily-veiled figure alighted,
and at sight of the men who accompanied her, Starr Wiley emitted a
second oath.

They paused in the doorway and with a sudden movement the girl tore off
her veil. There was a moment of electrified silence, broken by a
little cry from Angie.

"It's Willa!--That impostor, I mean----"

"No!" Kearn Thode, the second of the newcomers, advanced to Mason
North. "You were appointed the guardian of Willa Murdaugh, were you
not, Mr. North? I have brought her back to you, with proof of her
absolute identity."

"Bless my soul!" The rotund little man advanced with shining eyes, and
seized the girl's hands. "I am overwhelmed, my dear girl, delighted!
And you have proof, you say? What an amazingly fortunate turn of
affairs!"

No one echoed him for a moment. The Halsteads sat stunned, and
Harrington Chase, his face a greenish gray, had slumped in his chair.
Only Starr Wiley, his eyes glittering and a sinister sneer curling his
thin lips, looked on imperturbably. Winthrop North gasped. Then he
hurried forward.

"Good work, Kearn! Oh, Willa!" His voice broke as he took her hands
from his father's and wrung them hard. "Our trails have crossed again,
and it has been 'good luck' indeed!"

Ripley Halstead had risen, and his wife made a tentative movement to
follow his example. Vernon, too, recovered himself and advanced
eagerly, but Willa waved them back and took her place before the bar.

"This is quite a reunion, isn't it?" She smiled, but there was a grim
menace behind it. "I'm glad you're all here, for I've got a story to
tell you that I shouldn't care to tell twice. It goes back to before a
lot of you ever knew me, but you'll find it interesting enough, for it
concerns you all as well as me; you, and the Pool of the Lost Souls."

She leaned back with one elbow resting upon the bar and her other hand
in the pocket of her traveling-coat and surveyed them one by one, her
expression unchang