bout Tia Juana, save that I cannot and will not take
you to her. I have listened to your threats and innuendoes until my
patience is exhausted and I warn you not to approach me again on this
or any other matter. What you know is immaterial to me, you must tell
it to whom you please. Will you leave me now, or permit me to depart
without a further scene?"

He bowed and stepped back.

"As you desire. Remember you have three days. Think it over well, my
dear Billie. It is your present position, the Murdaugh money, a
brilliant future and a name, against the Pool of the Lost Souls!"

CHAPTER XVII

ANGIE SCORES

"I was sorry to have missed you at my sister's, although I do not think
you would have welcomed my appearance!" laughed Kearn Thode. "I was
striped with plaster like a savage in war paint."

"I had the pleasure of seeing the other victim of that motor accident,"
Willa remarked demurely. "He was even less prepossessing than usual.
I--I knew something of what occurred as I think you could understand
from my note. I think that I have again to thank you for your
championship."

They were sitting out a dance in the Allardyce's conservatory at their
first meeting the night of the Erskine dinner and for some reason
speech was difficult to them both. Her eyes, usually so candid, were
veiled from him, but Thode swept her with a hungrily wistful gaze.

"You are mistaken. You have nothing to thank me for. I am sorry that
any idle gossip reached your ears, but believe me, no other course was
open to me. No man could have helped himself--"

"Oh, I understand, of course." Willa blundered helplessly in her
haste. "You would have done as much, under the same circumstances, for
any other girl, but it is good to feel that there are real men in the
world who will protect the name of a friend as though it were that of
an own sister."

"It wasn't exactly that, Willa." His voice was very low and his eyes
had dropped from her face. "A man would naturally resent any
insinuation against a good woman, whether she were his sister or not.
There is only one woman in the world for whom a man fights with the
primitive blind rage of a human creature for his mate: only, fool that
he is, he does not always recognize the feeling which consumes him for
what it really is."

He paused, and Willa, too, was silent, but she feared that the very
beating of her heart would be audible to his ears. The dreamy waltz
had given