osing game and it isn't
even in you to lose like a man. You have stared at the glitter of gold
so long that you have gone blind looking at it. Your own infallibility
has loomed so large before you that you have lost your sanity. I say
listen to me!" her voice ringing with its command. "I am going to tell
you something. I am going to tell you why I came to you, why I
suffered you day after day to come to me. And what I came for I am
going to get. You are going to give it to me!"

She had sprung to her feet, twin spots of colour upon her white cheeks,
her eyes blazing.

"You told me that you had paid five thousand dollars to Helga Strawn
for her interest in the Dry Lands! Liar! You paid her twenty-five
thousand!"

"Well?" he snarled harshly. "What of it?"

"You laughed about it. You said that she was a fool like most women.
Like all women, was what you thought! And women were made just for you
to tread upon and sneer at. You did not know that I knew a great deal
more about Helga Strawn than you ever guessed!"

"You--know--Helga--Strawn!"

The words beat at her like stinging, separate blows. And now it had
come into his eyes, the thing that had never been there, the thing that
would never die out of the man's soul while life clung to him,--fear.

"I know you, to the last spot you think you've covered up," she ran on
swiftly. "So well that I know I am about to stir you into one of your
mad fits of rage. And I am not afraid to do it. You'd kill me if you
dared, but you won't dare. For after all I think that in your
braggadocio way you are a coward, Sledge Hume."

"You cat!" he flung at her with an attempt at his old manner.

"I have two men working out yonder," she said coolly. "If I called to
them--" She shrugged her shoulders. "I want to tell you all that you
are hungering to know even while you are afraid to hear it. Helga
Strawn got your check for five thousand dollars. She got, also, a
Wells Fargo order from Sacramento for twenty thousand. Sent by a
fictitious Arnold Wentworth. Ah!"

For he had cried out sharply, his face was dead white, his eyes were
filled with horror. His premonition had come.

"Who committed the crime you charged Wayne Shandon with?" she demanded
fearlessly. "Who killed Arthur Shandon and robbed him of twenty-five
thousand dollars? If Helga Strawn came into court and told all that
she knows do you realise what a jury would say about it?"

"The things you ar