e answer. "I depend on you in a
fashion you little dream of, and I guess you won't fail me."

Nap's jaw slowly hardened. "I'm not very likely to disappoint you," he
observed, "more especially as I have no intention of removing to Arizona
at present."

"No?"

"No."

"Not if I make a point of it?" Lucas spoke heavily, as if the effort of
speech were great. His hand had clenched upon Anne's letter.

Nap leaned forward without replying, the sunlight still shining upon his
face, and looked at him attentively.

"Yes," Lucas said very wearily. "It has come to that. I can't have you
here disturbing the public peace. I won't have my own brother arraigned
as a murderer. Nor will I have Anne Carfax pilloried by you for all
England to throw mud at. I've stood a good deal from you, Boney, but I'm
damned if I'm going to stand this."

"The only question is, Can you prevent it?" said Nap, without the
faintest change of countenance.

"I am going to prevent it."

"If you can."

"I am going to prevent it," Lucas repeated. "Before we go any further,
give me that shooter of yours."

Nap hesitated for a single instant, then, with a gesture openly
contemptuous, he took the revolver from his pocket and tossed it on
to the bed.

Lucas laid his hand upon it. He was looking full into Nap's face. "Now, I
want you to tell me something," he said. "I seem to remember your saying
to me once in this very room that you and Lady Carfax were friends, no
more, no less. You were mighty anxious that I shouldn't misunderstand.
Remember that episode?"

"Perfectly," said Nap.

"I surmised that you told me that because you honestly cared for her as a
friend. Was that so?"

Nap made a slight movement, such a movement as a man makes when he
catches sight of a stone to his path too late to avoid it.

"You may say so if you wish," he said.

"Meaning that things have changed since then?" questioned Lucas, in his
tired drawl.

Nap threw up his head with the action of a jibbing horse. "You can put it
how you like. You can say--if you like--that I am a bigger blackguard now
than I was then. It makes no difference how you put it."

"But I want to know," said Lucas quietly. "Are you a blackguard, Boney?"

His eyes were fixed steadily upon the dusky face with its prominent
cheek-bones and mocking mouth. Perhaps he knew, what Anne had discovered
long before, that those sensitive lips might easily reveal what the
fierce eyes hid.

"A matter of o