Ask your mother. If, to you, who
have gone hungering for lies to a man amply competent to tell them to
you, it has seemed that I have done a mean thing for selfish purposes
is it your place to judge me? Listen, I tell you. I have known for a
year and a half that Wayne Shandon murdered his brother and robbed the
dead body. I have seen, although all men know this fact as well as I
do, that he has been trickster enough to cover his bloody tracks; that
it would be hard to convict him in court. I have seen that it lay
within my power, that it has become my duty, to punish him in another
way. Not a thing have I done that is not just, that the law courts
will not sanction. And yet, when I had wrested from him the thing his
red hands took with his brother's life, I should have punished him a
little as he deserves. Is a man like him deserving of any other
treatment?"

"How do you know all this?" she demanded, all that dormant fierceness
of the female heart Hashing from the depths to the surface. "Did you
see him kill Arthur?"

"Don't be a fool," he retorted.

"Or were you over ready to believe because you hated him, and because
the tool you would lay your hand to would not only punish him but
enrich you? And you call me traitress!"

For a moment Martin Leland, his face convulsed, his hands clenched, his
great body towering over her, looked as though he were going to strike
her down. Then, without a word, he left the room and returned swiftly
to the study where MacKelvey and Hume were waiting for him.

Wanda stood looking after him, her body stiff and erect, her face
lifted, her eyes unchanging. Her mother laid a quick hand upon the
girl's arm. Then, suddenly the tired body relaxed, the flaming spirit
softened, and Wanda, white and trembling, dropped sobbing upon the
couch.

"Wanda, Wanda," whispered her mother softly, kneeling and putting her
hands gently upon the shaking shoulders. "I am sorry. And yet, Wanda,
I am proud of what my daughter has done to-day."

The mother heart comforted. And even before the storm of sobs, shaken
from the girl by strained and jangling nerves, had ceased, Mrs. Leland
was trying to make excuses for her husband.

"He has just been blinded by hate," she said bravely. "Some day he
will see the light."

"Gee," commented Willie Dart, outside the door, resuming his pacing up
and down upon the front porch. "If Red turns that girl down I'll marry
her myself!"

Had Martin