ck to it for a book or something. No one but Dudley
ever went near the office, and he was safely dead to the world, judging
from the horn of whisky he had gone to bed on. The place was freezing,
for the inside sash was up, leaving only the double window between us
and the night; and it was black-dark too, with the moon on the other
side of the house. But there were more things than love to talk about in
the dark,--to a dream girl you would give your soul to call your own,
and know you never will. And I began bluntly, "You've never had any
reason to distrust me. I've helped you----"

"Three times," sharply. "I know. I've been--grateful."

It was four, counting to-night when I had warned her to hide her
signature from Macartney; but I was not picking at trifles. I said:
"Well, I've trusted you, too! I knew the first night I came back here
that you were meeting some man secretly, in the dark. But it was none of
my business and I held my tongue about it; then, and when you met him
again--when it was my business."

"Again?" I heard the little start she gave, if I could not see it.

"The night before you and I took the gold out," I answered practically,
"when I told you your hair was untidy. I suppose you only thought I knew
you had been out of doors, but I heard the man you met leave you and
heard you say to yourself that you'd have to get hold of the gold. I
didn't know whether you were honest or not then, or when I gave you back
your little seal; and not even when you started for Billy Jones's with
me. I knew by the time I got there, if I was fool enough to believe it
was Collins you were fighting instead of helping. But any fool must see
now that Hutton was the only man likely to have followed you out here! I
suppose he told you some lie about giving you up for Van Ruyne's
necklace, unless you made silence worth while with Dudley's gold?" and
her assent made me angry clear through.

"My soul, girl," I burst out, "you balked him about that, even when you
knew he'd put that wolf dope in my wagon, and you were risking your
life--you put a bullet in him in the swamp--I can't see why you should
be worrying to conciliate him by meeting him to-night!"

But she caught me up almost stupidly. "Put a bullet in him? I
didn't--you must know I didn't!"

"There was blood in the swamp and on the road!"

I felt her staring at me in the dark. "It wasn't Dick's," she said
almost inaudibly. "It must have been some one else's. And--he