rstand--say, do you get that? You're _mine_--whether you like
it or not--whether you'd rather have Thornton or not. But I'll fix you
both for this--I'm no angel with a cherub's smile! I'll take it out of
Thornton till the laugh he's got now fades to a fare-thee-well; and I'll
put you where there aren't any strings tying me up the way there are
here. Do you understand!" His voice rose suddenly, and for a moment he
seemed to lose all control of himself as he reached for her and caught
her shoulder. "I love you," he flashed out between his teeth. "I love
you--that's what's the matter with me! And you know that--you know
you've got me there--and you'd play the fool with me, would you!" He
dropped his hands--and laughed a short, savage bark--and stepped back
and stared at her.

"Will you listen?"--she was twisting her hands, her head was drooped,
the long lashes veiled her eyes, her lips were quivering. "Will you
listen?" she said again, fighting to steady her voice. "It was an
accident."

"I saw the machine when you drove up--it was a wreck!" snapped Madison
sarcastically.

"We ran out of gasoline," she said quietly.

And then Madison laughed--fiercely--in his derision.

"Oh, keep on!" he rasped. "I told you I was only a blind fool that you
could put anything over on! That accounts for it, of course--a breakdown
isn't so easy to get away with. Gasoline!"

"We were miles from anywhere," she went on. "We had taken what we
thought was a short cut. Mr. Thornton built a shelter for me in the
woods, and went to--to--"

He caught up her hesitation like a flash.

"Fake the lines, Helena, if you haven't had enough rehearsals," he
suggested ironically. "Anything goes--with me."

And now a tinge of color came to Helena's cheeks, and the brown eyes
raised, and flashed, and dropped.

"He went to try and find help," she said. "He was out all night in the
storm. I do not know how far he must have walked. I know the nearest
house was five or six miles away--and there was no horse there--the man
had driven to some town that morning. It was almost daylight before Mr.
Thornton at last came back with a team. We were forty miles from
here--we sent the team to the nearest town for gasoline and then motored
back." She stopped--and then, with a catch in her voice: "He--he was
very good to me."

"Good to me"--the words seemed to stab at Madison, seemed to ring in his
ears and goad him with a fiercer jealousy--and her story of the nigh