s anything in Woods' life that does not bear looking
into, I'll find it out; if he has done anything in the past that is
likely to hurt you in the future, I shall know it, and you shall know
it, too, before you take this irrevocable step."

Woods flushed for a moment when Jim spoke of digging into his past, but
he laughed easily and said:

"You're getting a bit melodramatic, aren't you?"

"Better melodrama than tragedy," Jim responded bitterly.

"Helen has told you she doesn't love you, and that she does love me.
This morning she was ready to face the scandal of leaving her husband;
to go to live with me, to live openly with me, unmarried, until you
could get a divorce. That rather answers your first point, doesn't it?"

"It makes me think no better of you, that you should have agreed to
such a sacrifice."

"I never expected to win the husband's love at the same time I won his
wife's," Woods responded evenly.

Never have I seen murder shine out of a man's eyes as it did out of
Jim's at that moment. Each man measured the other across the narrow
space, and I longed that the laws of civilization might be swept aside
so that the two might tear at each other's throats, for the woman they
loved. Both men were powerful, and neither feared the other.

"As to looking up my past," Woods continued, "one might think you were
the father of the lady and I a youthful suitor. While I recognize no
right of yours to meddle in my affairs, the fact that I was sent to
America as the duly accredited agent of the French Government should
have some weight. They are not accustomed over there to hiring thugs
and cutthroats to carry on their business."

"This is all beside the point," Helen broke in. "May I ask, Jim, where
I am going to stay and what I am going to do while you are
investigating Frank's past?"

"You are going to stay here."

"Here? But where will you stay?"

"I am going to stay here with you."

Woods came around the divan. "Look here, Felderson! Can't you see
Helen doesn't love you, that you've lost--?"

"Keep back!" warned Jim huskily.

"She can't stay here with you. She's no more your wife than if she had
never married you. Do you think I'll allow her to stay in this house,
forced to endure your attentions--?"

"Who are you to say what you will or won't allow?" Jim roared, his eyes
blazing. "You came into my house as my guest and stole my most
precious possession. Get out before I kill you!"

W