on the desk. "He
left that behind him."

Rexhill grunted.

"Yes, I will tell her," he declared sulkily, "and about the Jensen
affair, if I've got to be a rascal, you'll be the goat. Give Bailey some
money and get him out of town before he tanks up and tells all he
knows."

Helen came in, looking very sweet and fresh in a linen suit, and was at
first inclined to be sympathetic when she heard of Moran's plight,
without knowing the source of it. Before she did know, the odor of
liquor on his breath repelled her. He finally departed, not at the
bidding of her cool nod, but urged by his lust of revenge, which, even
more than the whiskey, had fired his blood.

"Intoxicated, isn't he? How utterly disgusting!"

Her father looked at her admiringly, keenly regretting that he must
dispel her love dream. But he took some comfort from the fact that Wade
was apparently in love with another woman. The thought of this had been
enough to make him seize upon the chance of keeping all her affection
for himself.

"He's had a drink or two," he admitted, "but he needed them. He had a
hard night. Poor fellow, he was nearly dead when I arrived. Wade handled
him very roughly."

Helen looked up in amazement.

"Did _Gordon_ do it? What was he doing here?" The Senator hesitated, and
while she waited for his answer she was struck by a sense of humor in
what had happened. She laughed softly. "Good for him!"

"We think that he came here to--to see what he could find, partly,"
Rexhill explained. "That probably was not his only reason. He wasn't
alone."

"Oh!" Her tone expressed disappointment that his triumph had not been a
single-handed one. "Did they tie him with these?" she asked, picking up
one of the crumpled strips of linen, which lay on the floor. Suddenly
her face showed surprise. "Why--this is part of a woman's skirt?"

Her father glanced at the strip of linen over his glasses.

"Yes," he nodded. "I believe it is."

"Somebody was here with Race?" Her voice was a blend of attempted
confidence and distressing doubt.

"My dear, I have painful news for you...."

"With Gordon?" The question was almost a sob. "Who, father? Dorothy
Purnell?"

Helen dropped into a chair, and going to her, the Senator placed his
hands on her shoulders. She looked shrunken, years older, with the bloom
of youth blighted as frost strikes a flower, but even in the first and
worst moments of her grief there was dignity in it. In a measure Race
Moran