, but when I
refused to betray you I found I was caught in a trap. Whitney Stoddard
is hounding you in every possible way to make you give up your mine,
and after I refused to give back my stock he set out deliberately to
ruin me!"

She shuddered and lay silent and Rimrock moved uneasily.

"What was it he wanted you to do?" he asked at last and she tore
herself swiftly away.

"I can't tell you--here. But come up to my rooms. I defied him, but I
did it for you."

She fell quickly to rearranging her hair and hat in preparation for the
short dash past the doorman and at the end she looked at him and smiled.

"I knew you would come," she said; and as he helped her out he thrilled
to the touch of her hand. At odd times before she had seemed old and
blase, but now she was young and all-alive. He dismissed the taxi
without a thought of his business and they hurried up to her
apartments. She let herself in and as she locked the door behind them
she reached up and took his big hat.

"You must stay a while," she said. "The servants are gone and I have
no one to protect me if they come to serve the papers. Just start the
fire--and if anyone knocks don't let them break down the door."

She smiled again and a sudden giddiness seemed to blind Rimrock and
make him doubt where he was. He looked about at the silken rugs and
the luxurious hangings on the walls and wondered if it was the same
place as before. Even when he lit the laid fire and sank down on a
divan he still felt the sweet confusion of a dream; and then she came
back, suddenly transformed by a soft house-gown, and looked him
questioningly in the face.

"Can you guess," she asked as she sat down beside him, "what it was
that he wanted me to do? No, not to betray you or get possession of
your stock--all he asked was that I should marry you."

"Marry me!" exclaimed Rimrock and his keen, staring eyes suddenly
narrowed as she bowed her head.

"Yes, marry you," she said. "That was what made it so hard. Did you
notice, when I stopped inviting you here? I was afraid, my Rimrock; I
was afraid I might forget and--marry you. That was the one spot where
Stoddard's plan failed, he forgot that I might fall in love. I loved
you, Rimrock, loved you too much to marry you, and so I broke up all
his plans. If I had married you, don't you see how easy it would have
been for me to get hold of your stock? And that girl out there--the
one I don't like--she would hav