sn't an air of superiority, for she couldn't have stood that. It was
just discretion, maybe, or something else, she couldn't decide what. But
Beth didn't want to be put in a glass case like the wax flowers at home.
Her voice was a mere mechanical instrument, as he had taken pains so
often to tell her, but he seemed to be making the mistake of thinking
_her_ a mechanical instrument too. She wasn't. She was very much alive,
tingling with vitality, very human under her demure aspect during the
singing lessons, and it had bothered her that Peter shouldn't know it.
His ignorance, his indifference affronted her. Didn't he see what she
looked like? Didn't he see that she might be worth making love to ...
just a little, a very little ... once in a while?

The clouds had broken suddenly, almost without warning, when he had
talked like a professor--about sentiment--apologized--that was what he
had done--_apologized_ for not making love to her! Oh!

And then things had happened swiftly--incredible, unbelievable things.
The lightning had flashed and it had shown an ugly Mr. Nichols--a
different Mr. Nichols from anything that she could have imagined of him.
The things he had said to her ... his kisses ... shameful things! A
hundred times she had brushed them off like the vision of him from her
mind. And still they returned, warm and pulsing to her lips. And still
the vision of him returned--remained. He _had_ been so nice to her
before....

* * * * *

Now Beth sat in the big chair opposite Peter in the Cabin by the log
fire (for the evenings were getting cool) while he finished telling her
about the death of Ben Cameron, of the murder and of Jonathan K.
McGuire's share in the whole terrible affair. It was with some
misgivings, even after swearing her to secrecy, that he told her what he
had learned through Kennedy and McGuire. And she had listened,
wide-eyed. Her father of course was only the shadow of a memory to her,
the evil shade in a half-forgotten dream, and therefore it was not grief
that she could feel, not even sorrow for one who in life had been so
vile, even if his miserable death had been so tragic--only horror and
dismay at the thought of the perpetrator of the infamy. And not until
Peter had come to the end of the story did she realize what this
revelation meant, that the very foundation of McGuire's great fortune
was laid upon property which belonged to her.

"Out of all this evil m