from insult and contumely.

And she? She must repay him by thwarting his ambition, dashing his
hopes, bringing to defeat his most cherished plan! What would he think
of her when he learned the truth and recalled how she had accepted his
confidence and given him in return only silence pregnant with deceit?

Her head drooped and burning tears smarted in her eyes, but she held
them back grimly. If Willa Murdaugh was a self-pitying weakling,
Gentleman Geoff's Billie was not, and she would see the game through!
Because of all that the old name had meant she would not be a quitter,
though her own happiness be forever lost. What was her happiness? she
demanded wrathfully of herself. A side-bet, nothing more! She was out
for bigger stakes than mere happiness, and she was playing to win.

Wrapping herself in her fur coat, with a tiny close-fitting cap upon
her head, she slipped out of doors and around the corner to where,
half-way through the block, Dan Morrissey waited with the gray car.

It was commencing to snow; great, soft, feathery flakes which lighted
upon her as softly as thistledown and melted each in a single
glistening drop like a tear. The air was coldly still and the sky a
sheet of lead.

"Have I kept you waiting long, Dan?" she asked as he tucked the robe
about her. "I'm sorry, I hope you've not been cold. It looks as
though we were in for a real storm, doesn't it?"

"I wisht it'd come down a regular blizzard, Miss," he responded dourly.
"Then maybe we could shake off the boys that have been hangin' on my
trail for dear life! It's not cold I've been, sitting here trying to
figure out how to stall them, but hot under the collar! Where to,
Miss? It don't make any partic'lar difference, they'll be right along
behind!"

"Then around the Park, please, Dan. You can tell me about them as we
go."

She snuggled down in the soft robes as the car leapt and fled like a
lithe gray cat through the storm. Her thoughts were busy with the new
problem; these followers were Wiley's men, of course. He had boasted
that he would have more able tools to aid him in the future than Vernon
had proved. Where had he obtained them?

"Are they professional detectives, do you think, Dan?" she asked.

He needed but the word to start him.

"They are that! I was chauffeur once for a private detective agency,
and I know them and their ways, though these fellows seem to have a new
wrinkle or two. It started a couple of