, Dick, because I don't want
you to be what Barney said."

Dick slumped into a chair, at last beaten down by this cumulative
revelation. He buried his face in his hands and his panting breath was
convulsive with unuttered sobs. Maggie looked down upon the young boy,
with pity, remorse, and an increasing recognition of the wide-spread
suffering she had wrought.

"To think that this has all been horrible make-believe!" he at last
groaned. "That all the while I've been looked on as just a young fool
who would always remain a fool!"

Maggie, in her sense of guilt, was helpless to make any reply that would
soften his agony; and for a space neither spoke.

Presently Dick stood suddenly up. His face was still marked by
suffering, but somehow it seemed to have grown older without losing its
youth. There was a new blaze of determination in the direct look he held
on Maggie.

"You say you have never loved me?" he demanded.

She shook her head. "But I've told you that I've always liked you."

"Larry Brainard's doing what he has kept on doing for you--that means
that he loves you, doesn't it?" he pressed on.

"He has told me so."

"And you love him?"

"What difference does that make?--since I am going away as soon as I get
everything I'm wholly or partly responsible for cleared up."

"If Larry Brainard has known you for a long while, then how about Barney
Palmer and Jimmie Carlisle?"

"They've known me as long, or longer."

"Then you must have all known each other?"

"Yes. Years ago Larry worked with Barney and Jimmie Carlisle."

"What was the attitude of those two toward Larry, when he was trying to
balk them by making you give up the plan?"

"They hated him. They are the cause--especially Barney--of all of
Larry's trouble with the police and with the old crowd he's quit. To try
to clear Larry, that's the most important thing I'm going to try to do."

"And that's where you've got to let me help you!" Dick cried with sudden
energy. "Larry's been a mighty good friend to me--he's tried to head me
right--and I owe him a lot. And I'd like a chance to show that Barney
Palmer I'm not going to keep on being the eternal fool he sized me up to
be!"

Maggie was startled by this swift transformation. "Why--why, Dick!" she
breathed.

"What's your plan to clear Larry?"

"I hadn't got so far as to have a clear plan. I had only just realized
that there had to be a plan. But since they have set the police on
Larry, it ca