avagely, don't you, Bert?--you've been
hating me all these years."

"No," I said, and it was the truth, up to that time. I knew that the
feeling I had been entertaining for her had nothing in it so robust as
hatred. There was no especial need for palliating her offense--far
less, indeed, than I knew at that moment; yet I did it, saying, "You
did what you thought you had to do; possibly it was what your father
made you do--I don't know."

She was silent for a moment before she began again by asking me what
made me change my name.

"My name isn't Herbert," I explained; "it never was. I think you must
know that I was christened 'James Bertrand,' after my father."

"I didn't know it," she denied, adding: "but you have dropped the
Weyburn?"

"Naturally."

Again there was a little interval of silence, and as before, she was
the first to break it.

"So you are one of the owners of the famous Little Clean-Up? Are you
very rich, Bertie?--you see, I can't give up the old name, all at once."

"No; I am not rich--as riches are counted nowadays."

"But you are going to be in just a little while," she put in, following
the confident assertion with a query that came as suddenly as a
stiletto stab: "Who is the girl, Bertie?"

"What girl?"'

"The girl you are going to marry. I saw her with you at the Broadway
one night three weeks ago; I sat right behind you. She doesn't
'pretty' very much, to my way of thinking."

Once again I felt the murder nerve twittering. This woman with a
mocking voice and a heart of stone knew everything; I was as certain of
it as if I could have seen into the plotting brain behind the
long-lashed eyes. I knew now why she hadn't glanced aside at me as she
passed on the way to the elevators in the Brown Palace the previous
evening. She had discovered me long before. At whatever cost, I must
know how long before.

"You saw me last night, and three weeks ago at the theater," I said.
"How long have you known that I was in Colorado?"

"Ever since you came, I think," she returned quietly. "I was a member
of a private-car party up at Cripple Creek about that time--with some
of the Midland officials and their friends, you know. Our car was
taken out over a new branch line they were building at that time, and I
saw you standing beside the track. Perhaps I shouldn't have recognized
you if I hadn't been thinking so pointedly of you. The home newspapers
had told of your es--of your leaving t