you try to see this from my point of
view? My first thought was to go to your father and to ask him for an
explanation, just as it is your first thought. But what good could it
do? In a few days now I shall go to the court house in El Toyon. If
there was a mortgage, as Dart swears and Garth himself admits, it will
be on record there. If notice of foreclosure were properly served, and
foreclosure were then made in default of my appearance, or because
Garth did not go or send a representative, if the sheriff's certificate
of sale was made, the whole transaction will have been placed on
record. _If_ all of this is true, Wanda, and I am very much afraid
that it is, then, girl of mine, is there any reason in the world why I
should go to Martin Leland with it?" His voice had hardened, and
though he did not know it, Wanda had noticed the change in tone.
"Can't you see," he went on deliberately, "that after the way I have
been treated I have the right to expect your father to come to me if
there is any explaining to do?"

"I can't believe it," she said faintly, though belief was already
strong within her. "Why should my father do a thing like that? Do you
know, Wayne, that you are accusing him of a very ugly thing?"

"Yes," he said, his tone suddenly gentle again. "I am sorry for you,
Wanda. But can't you see that if this is true there is only one thing
in the world for me to do?"

"But," and the question uppermost in her mind demanded repetition, "why
should my father so soil his hands."

"Aren't there many reasons? If he really believes that I killed
Arthur, if for lack of evidence or for some other reason he feels that
the law cannot touch me, wouldn't he come to tell himself--"

"Oh," she cried impetuously, "that would be mean and cowardly! For him
to tell himself that robbing you would be justifiable because he was
punishing a man he deemed guilty! It would be braver, more like a man,
to do it for the hot reason of hatred."

After the silence with which Wayne answered her it was Wanda who again
spoke.

"Wayne," she asked quietly, "is this all you have to tell me?"

"No. I want you to understand what I am going to do, what I must do,
if this is all true. It is what they have driven me to do, unless I
prove myself to be what your father thinks me, a weak willed, worthless
do-nothing. You don't want me to be that, Wanda?"

"No," she replied thoughtfully. "I want you to be a man."

"Then," he cri