uld do would be to take my regrets and go back to the West."

"Did you tell him all that?" asked John Mark in a rather changed voice.

"Yes; but not quite so bluntly."

"Naturally not; you're a gentle girl, Caroline. I suppose he took it
very hard."

"Very, but in a silly way. He's full of pride, you see. He drew himself
up and gave me a lecture about deceiving men."

"Well, since you have lost interest in him, it makes no difference."

"But in a way," she said faintly, rising slowly from her chair, "I can't
help feeling some interest."

"Naturally not. But, you see, I was worried so much about you and this
foolish fellow that I gave orders for him to be put out of the way, as
soon as you left him."

Caroline Smith stood for a moment stunned and then ran to him.

"No, no!" she declared. "In the name of the dear mercy of Heaven, John,
you haven't done that?"

"I'm sorry."

"Then call him back--the one you sent. Call him back, John, and I'll
serve you the rest of my life without question. I'll never fail you,
John, but for your own sake and mine, for the sake of everything fair in
the world, call him back!"

He pushed away her hands, but without violence. "I thought it would be
this way," he said coldly. "You told a very good lie, Caroline. I
suppose clever Ronicky Doone rehearsed you in it, but it needed only the
oldest trick in the world to expose you."

She recoiled from him. "It was only a joke, then? You didn't mean it,
John? Thank Heaven for that!"

A savagery which, though generally concealed, was never far from the
surface, now broke out in him, making the muscles of his face tense and
his voice metallic. "Get to your room," he said fiercely, "get to your
room. I've wasted time enough on you and your brat of a brother, and now
a Western lout is to spoil what I've done? I've a mind to wash my hands
of all of you--and sink you. Get to your room, and stay there, while I
make up my mind which of the two I shall do."

She went, cringing like one beaten, to the door, and he followed her,
trembling with rage.

"Or have you a choice?" he asked. "Brother or lover, which shall it be?"

She turned and stretched out her hands to him, unable to speak; but the
man of the sneer struck down her arms and laughed in her face. In mute
terror she fled to her room.

Chapter Seventeen

_Old Scars_

In his room Bill Gregg was striding up and down, throwing his hands
toward the ceiling. Now and then he p