rp movement that had in it more of surprise than
protest. His throat worked spasmodically for a moment or two ere
he forced it to utterance.

"Don't you think," he said then, in a half-strangled undertone,
"that it would be a million times easier for me to let you
believe--otherwise?"

"Why?" said Burke briefly.

"Because--" savagely Guy flung back the answer--"I would rather be
murdered for what I've done than despised for what I've failed to
do."

"I see," Burke said. "Then why not let me believe the obvious
without further argument?"

There was contempt in his voice, but it was a bitter self-contempt
in which the man before him had no share. He had entered that room
with murder in his heart. The lust was still there, but he knew
now that it would go unsatisfied. He had been stopped, by what
means he scarcely realized.

But Guy knew; and though it would have been infinitely easier, as
he had said, to have endured that first mad fury than to have
stayed it with a confession of failure, for some reason he forced
himself to follow the path of humiliation that he had chosen.

"Because what you call the obvious chances also to be the
impossible," he said. "I'm not such a devil as to want to ruin her
for the fun of the thing. I tell you she's straight--as straight
as I am crooked. And you've got to believe in her--whether you
want to or not. That--if you like--is the obvious." He broke off,
breathing hard, yet in a fashion oddly triumphant, as if in
vindicating the girl he had somehow vindicated himself also.

Burke looked at him fixedly for a few seconds longer. Then,
abruptly, as if the words were hard to utter, he spoke; "I believe
you."

Guy relaxed with what was almost a movement of exhaustion, but in a
moment he braced himself again. "You shall have your satisfaction
all the same," he said. "I owe you that. Where shall I meet you?"

Burke made a curt gesture as if dismissing a matter of but minor
importance, and turned to go.

But in an instant, as if stung into action, Guy was before him. He
gripped him by the shoulder. "Man! Don't give me any of your
damned generosity!" He ground out the words between his teeth.
"Name a place! Do you hear? Name a place and time!"

Burke stopped dead. His face was enigmatical as he looked at Guy.
There was a remote gleam in his stern eyes that was neither of
anger nor scorn. He stood for several seconds in silence, till the
hand that clutched h