Now she looked directly at him, and there was a flicker of flame in her
regard.

"Do you know what a Hardscrabbler is, Ellis?" she asked.

The other rubbed his head in puzzlement. "I don't believe I do," he
confessed.

"Then you won't understand when I tell you that I'm one and that I'd see
your 'Clarion' blazing in hell before I'd take another cent of your
money." The fire died from her face, and in her former tone of dulled
stolidity she repeated, "I want to see Mr. Surtaine."

With every word uttered, McGuire Ellis's forebodings had grown darker.
That Hal Surtaine, carried away by the girl's vividness and allure,
might have involved himself in a _liaison_ with her was credible enough.
He recalled the episode of the road-house, on that stormy spring day.
That Hal would have deserted her afterward, Ellis could not believe. And
yet--and yet--why otherwise should she come with the marks of fierce
misery in her face, demanding an interview at this time? On one point
Ellis's mind was swiftly made up: she should not see Hal.

"Miss Neal," he said quietly, "you can sit there all night, but you
can't see the Boss unless you tell me your errand."

The girl rose, slowly. "Oh, I guess you all stand together here," she
said. "Well, remember: I gave him his chance to square himself."

When Hal came up from a visit to the new press half an hour later, Ellis
had decided to say nothing of the call. Later, he must have it out with
his employer, for the sake of both of them and of the "Clarion." But it
was an ordeal which he was glad to postpone. Nothing more, he judged,
was to be feared that night, from Milly Neal; he could safely sleep over
the problem. Having a certain sufficient religion of his own, McGuire
Ellis still believes that a merciful Heaven forgives us our sins; but,
looking back on that evening's decision, he sometimes wonders whether it
ever fully pardons our mistakes.

While he sat reading proof on the status of a flickering foreign war,
the Hardscrabbler's daughter, in a quiet back room farther down the
block, slowly sipped more gin; and gin is fire and fury to the
Hardscrabbler blood.

At eleven o'clock that evening, Dr. Surtaine, returning to that massive
hybrid of architecture which he called home, found Milly Neal waiting in
his study.

"Well, Milly: what's up?" he asked, cheerfully enough in tone, but with
a sinking heart.

"I want to know what you're going to do for me?"

"Something wrong?"

"Yo