Two o’clock found Johnny mounting the stairs to the Eldorado’s parlor. Molly awaited him, but the boy found her cast down. Her appearance prompted him to plain speaking.

“Listen, girl,” he said. “There’s somethin’ wrong. Now, tell me what it is. I felt it this mornin’. It ain’t your way to steal off, and that’s what you did this trip. You’re worried, and I know it.”

“I am, Johnny,” Molly answered readily. “I’d have told you without your asking. I did come here hurriedly and without a word to any one. Maybe I’ve been foolish, but it sounded so genuine that I had to do as I have. I won’t talk in riddles any longer. Hughie brought me this letter night before last. It rather upset me, and then, too, I was curious. I want you to read it.”

Johnny’s face whitened as he obeyed her, for without question it was a communication from Crosbie Traynor.

The letter ran:

A sigh escaped Johnny as he handed back the letter.

“Well, what do you make of it?” Molly asked earnestly.

The boy could only shake his head. Here was the final proof of the dead man’s interest in the girl Johnny loved. What lay in back of it was still a closed book, but certainly Traynor had felt himself close to her.

His death may have been without connection with his proposed intention to see Molly, but Johnny just could not believe it.

There was old Kent’s attitude toward Johnny; the whole sorry business at Standing Rock; the bickering; the stupidity of men who were solid citizens.

Was it all a play, a staged show to block justice?

The boy tried to close his eyes to the pictures his sorely puzzled brain conjectured, but in spite of every resolve an inner voice kept on dinning in his ears: “Jackson Kent killed this man! Hired it done! Paid for it!”

But why? Molly’s mother? What other reason could a rich man have for ordering a crime of this sort?

It was not to be supposed that Johnny’s excitement would escape Molly’s eyes. In comparison she was less nervous than he.

“Are you reading something between the lines?” she demanded. “Your face is white.”

“Miss Molly, how long have you been waiting?”

“On and off since eleven. But tell me, shouldn’t I have come? Don’t be mysterious that way, Johnny. You actually frighten me.”

“No harm in coming,” he told her. He was only marking time. Johnny knew that he would have to tell some part of what had happened to the man who had written her this letter. “Can you make a guess as to who wrote that note?” he went on, still playing against the minutes.

“Why, no. I haven’t the slightest memory of my mother. And I do believe the man was what he claimed to be.”

“He was,” Johnny answered succinctly. “What you intendin’ doin’ now?”

“I thought I’d wait here the rest of the afternoon.”

Now he had to tell her.

“No use doin’ that, little girl. No use at all.”

Johnny’s manner brought the girl to her feet.

“What are you saying?” she asked falteringly.

“He won’t come.” The words left the boy’s lips slowly. “The man you’re waiting for is dead!”