ht, Mis----"

"No."

"Tresler, si----"

"No."

"All right, Tresler," said the old man, in a strangely husky voice.

* * * * *

Diane was confronting her lover for the last interview. Mrs. Osler had
discreetly left them, and now they were sitting in the diminutive
parlor, the man, at the girl's expressed wish, sitting as far from her
as the size of the room would permit. All his cheeriness had deserted
him and a decided frown marred the open frankness of his face.

Diane, herself, looked a little older than when we saw her last at the
ranch. The dark shadows round her pretty eyes were darker, and her
face looked thinner and paler, while her eyes shone with a feverish
brightness.

"You overruled my decision once, Jack," she was saying in a low tone
that she had difficulty in keeping steady, "but this time it must not
be."

"Well, look here, Danny, I can give you just an hour in which to ease
your mind, but I tell you candidly, after that you'll have to say
'yes,' in spite of all your objections. So fire away. Here's the
watch. I'm going to time you."

Tresler spoke lightly and finished up with a laugh. But he didn't feel
like laughter. This objection came as a shock to him. He had pictured
such a different meeting.

Diane shook her head. "I can say all I have to say in less time than
that, Jack. Promise me that you will not misunderstand me. You know my
heart, dear. It is all yours, but, but--Jack, I did not tell all I
knew at the inquest."

She paused, but Tresler made no offer to help her out. "I knew father
could see at night. He was what Mr. Osler calls a--Nyc--Nyctalops.
That's it. It's some strange disease and not real blindness at all, as
far as I can make out. He simply couldn't see in daylight because
there was something about his eyes which let in so much light, that
all sense of vision was paralyzed, and at such time he suffered
intense pain. But when evening came, in the moonlight, or late
twilight; in fact at any time when there was no glare of light, just a
soft radiance, he could not only see but was possessed of peculiarly
acute vision. How he kept his secret for so many years I don't know. I
understand why he did, but, even now, I cannot understand what drove
him to commit the dreadful deeds he did, so wealthy and all as he
was."

Tresler thought he could guess pretty closely. But he waited for her
to go on.

"Jack, I discovered that he could see at nigh