dressing-table where the first note had been treasured,
and drew it forth. Then, seizing the other paper from the floor, she
held them beneath the glow of the lamp with shaking hands and compared
them.

The next minute she had crumpled them both fiercely and cast them from
her, flinging herself across her bed in a paroxysm of bitter grief and
disillusionment.

Kearn Thode had written both letters; there could be no longer doubt.
He was like all the rest! Truth and chivalry departed from the world
and her shattered dream, and once more Willa found herself alone, but
in a depth of solitude she had never known before. Love had gone.

CHAPTER XVIII

MIDNIGHT FOR CINDERELLA

When the late lowering dawn seeped in at the windows, Willa raised
herself wearily and crept to her desk. Her face with the tears dried
upon it was ghastly in the morning light, but her eyes held a look of
grim determination. Seating herself, she took up her pen and wrote
without hesitation:

"My Dear Mr. Thode:

"I beg that you will not call this evening, that I may be spared the
painful necessity of having you shown the door. In the light of my
present full comprehension of your motives, I no longer wonder that
even you hesitated at the moment of your odious proposal. The only
possible reparation you can make for the humiliation you have brought
upon me in my inmost thoughts is to so arrange that I need never look
upon your face again.

"In all sincerity,

"WILLA MURDAUGH."

The letter finished, she sealed and stamped it; then her worn-out body
slumped in the chair and her head bowed upon her folded arms on the
desk.

The collapse lasted but a moment, however. The same dogged
determination which had forced her weary spirit to the pronouncement of
the verdict upon her love, drove her yet indomitably on. As she lifted
her head her gaze mechanically fell upon the calendar before her and a
slow, infinitely sad smile curled her lips. It was the beginning of
the third day since Starr Wiley had issued his ultimatum. He must
carry his threat into execution or admit it to have been sheer bluff.
Curiously, she looked upon the impending crisis with the impassivity of
a bystander. What did it matter now?

Then realization came back in a full tide and she sprang to her feet.
The weary plodding search which had taken her half over the city in the
past few agonizing days had been fruitless, yet must it still continue
until de