get it. I don't know that
'G' is as important as his warning. That note's a warning."

"Yes. It's a warning. And I don't think you need me to tell you what
about."

"Concerning my uncle, or myself?"

"Are you trying to put it over on me that you don't know?"

"That's what I'm trying to do," Dick said, with a sort of grave
patience.

The reporter liked courage when he saw it, and he was compelled to a
sort of reluctant admiration.

"You've got your courage with you," he observed. "How long do you
suppose it will be after you set foot on the streets of this town before
you're arrested? How do you know I won't send for the police myself?"

"I know damned well you won't," Dick said grimly. "Not before I'm
through with you. You've chosen to interest yourself in me. I suppose
you don't deny the imputation in that letter. You'll grant that I have
a right to know who and what you are, and just what you are interested
in."

"Right-o," the reporter said cheerfully, glad to get to grips; and
to stop a fencing that was getting nowhere. "I'm connected with the
Times-Republican, in your own fair city. I was in the theater the night
Gregory recognized you. Verbum sap."

"This Gregory is the 'G'?"

"Oh, quit it, Clark," Bassett said, suddenly impatient. "That letter's
the last proof I needed. Gregory wrote it after he'd seen David
Livingstone. He wouldn't have written it if he and the old man hadn't
come to an understanding. I've been to the cabin. My God, man, I've even
got the parts of your clothing that wouldn't burn! You can thank Maggie
Donaldson for that."

"Donaldson," Dick repeated. "That was it. I couldn't remember her name.
The woman in the cabin. Maggie. And Jack. Jack Donaldson."

He got up, and was apparently dizzy, for he caught at the table.

"Look here," Bassett said, "let me give you a drink. You look all in."

But Dick shook his head.

"No, thanks just the same. I'll ask you to be plain with me, Bassett. I
am--I have become engaged to a girl, and--well, I want the story. That's
all."

And, when Bassett only continued to stare at him:

"I suppose I've begun wrong end first. I forgot about how it must seem
to you. I dropped a block out of my life about ten years ago. Can't
remember it. I'm not proud of it, but it's the fact. What I'm trying to
do now is to fill in the gap. But I've got to, somehow. I owe it to the
girl."

When Bassett could apparently find nothing to say he went on:

"You say