David found a keen pleasure in the business on which he was now engaged. For four years he had talked to no one, and for a year he had talked to but four or five. Now he was actively thrown among men of the world—Jordon, the general agent of the New Jersey Home Company, his assistants, and the attorneys of the company. He instinctively measured himself beside them, and he exulted, for though they were the shrewder in business, he felt himself bigger, broader, than they.

The deal progressed hopefully. David discovered the five owners in Rogers's syndicate to be five ordinary men, with no particular business courage and no courage of any other kind, and whose interest in their own welfare was their only interest in life. However, they had confidence in Rogers's success, and stood solidly behind him—which was all that could be desired of them. From his first meeting with Jordon, David, too, was confident of success. Jordon held off, talked about preposterous prices—but David felt surrender beneath the grand air with which the general agent brushed Rogers's proposition aside. The company had to have the land, so it had to meet Rogers's terms. And after each subsequent meeting David felt that much nearer the day of surrender.

One morning, two weeks after he had entered upon his new duties, he was looking through some papers in the living-room relating to the land, when Kate knocked and entered.

"There's a woman out there wants to see you," she said, with a sharp glance.

"What's she want?"

"She wouldn't tell me. She said you'd see her all right—she was an old friend. If she is, I think some of your friends had better sign the pledge!"

David followed Kate into the office. A tall woman rose from his chair and smiled at him. It was Lillian Drew. The life went out of him. He stood with one hand against the door jamb and stared at her.

When he had seen her five years ago she had had grace, and lines, and a hardened sort of beauty—and she had worn silks and diamonds. Now the face was flushed, and coarsened, and lined with wrinkles—the hands were gemless, the hair carelessly done—and in place of the rich gown there was an ill-fitting jacket and skirt. It was evident that for her the last five years had been a dizzy incline.

"What a warm welcome!" she said, with a short laugh.

David did not answer her. Kate's quick eyes looked from one to the other.

"Wouldn't you just as soon our talk should be private?" Lillian Drew asked, with a smile of irony. "You'd better run out for awhile, little girl."

Kate glanced at her with instinctive hatred. Lillian Drew, whom the five years had made more ready with vindictiveness, glared back. "Come, run along, little girl!"

Kate turned to David. "You'd better leave us alone for a few minutes," he said with an effort.

Kate jerked on her hat, jabbed in the pins, marched by Lillian Drew with "you old cat!" and passed out into the street.

"Well, now—what do you want?" David demanded.

"Oh, I've just come to return your call. May I sit down?—I'm tired." And smiling her baiting smile she sank back into David's chair.

David crossed to his desk and looked harshly down upon her. "How did you find me?"

"Surely you thought I'd look you up when I got back to town! I asked at the Mission. A girl in the office there wrote your address down on a card for me. And told me a few things." She narrowed her eyes—almost all their once remarkable brilliance was gone. "A few things, mister."

"Please say at once what you want," he asked, trying to speak with restraint.

"Just to see an old acquaintance."

"Come to the point!" he said sharply.

"Well, then—I'm broke."

"I don't see why that brings you to me."

"Because you're going to give me money—that's why."

"I certainly will not!"

"Oh, yes, you will—when I get through with you. You wouldn't want me to tell all I know of Phil Morton, now would you?"

"Tell if you want to." Anger at her as the cause of his five hard years was rising rapidly. He pointed savagely to a mirror that Kate had put up behind the door. "Look at yourself. Who'll believe your word?"

"But I won't ask 'em to believe my word," she said softly, her eyes gleaming triumph at him.

Her words and manner startled him. "What do you mean?"

"Why, I'll show the letters, of course."

"Letters! What letters?"

"Morton's letters."

"Morton's letters!" He stared at her. "You gave them to me."

"Part of them." She laughed quietly, and ran the tip of her tongue between her lips. "Oh, you were easy!"

David choked back an impulse to lay vengeful hands upon her. "You're lying!" he said fiercely.

"Oh, I am, am I?"

She slipped a hand into the pocket of her skirt, paused in the action, and her baiting smile turned to a look of threat. "If you try to grab them, if you make a move toward me, I'll scream, people will rush in here, and the whole thing will come out at once! You understand?"

The tormenting smile returned, and she slowly drew from her skirt a packet of yellow letters held together by an elastic band. She removed the band, drew one sheet from its envelope, and held it up before David's eyes.

"You needn't bother about reading it. You've read one bunch—and they're all alike. But look at the handwriting. I guess you know that, don't you? And look at the signature: 'Always with love—Phil.' That's one letter—there are fourteen more. And look at this photograph of the two of us together, taken while he was in Harvard. And look at this letter written five years ago, saying he'd send me five hundred the next day—and at this letter, written two days before he died, saying he hadn't another cent and couldn't get it. I guess you're satisfied."

She coolly snapped the band over the bundle and returned the letters to her pocket. "I guess I'll get some money, won't I?"

"I see," David remarked steadily, "that I must again call your attention to the fact that there are such things as laws against blackmailing."

She looked at him, amusedly. "That worked once—but it won't work twice. Arrest me for blackmail, and there'll be a trial, and at it the truth about Morton will come out. You told me five years ago you didn't care if the truth did come out—but I know a lot better now!" She laughed. "Please send for a policeman!"

He was helpless, and his face showed it.

"Oh, I've got you! But don't take it so hard. You scared me out of town—but I've got nothing against you. I really like you; I'm sorry it's you I'm troubling. I've got to have money—that's all."

There was an instant of faint regret in her face—but only an instant. "Yes, I've got you. But I haven't showed you all my cards yet. Mebbe you'll tell me you won't pay anything to keep me still about Phil Morton, who's been dead for five years. All right. But you'll pay me to keep still about yourself."

David looked at her blankly.

"You don't understand? I'll talk plainer then. I've been doing a little putting one and one together. You didn't take that five thousand dollars from the Mission. Phil Morton didn't have a cent of his own—he told me that when he was half crazy with trying to beg off; he said I was driving him into crime. He took that money, and I got it. Well, for some reason, I don't know why, you said you took it, and went to prison."

Wonderment succeeded to hardness and sarcasm. "You're a queer fellow," she said slowly. "Why did you do it?"

"Go on!"

"I don't understand it—you're a queer lot!—but I know you've got your reason for wanting to make the world think it was you that took the money and not Phil Morton. And I know it's a mighty strong reason, too—strong enough to make you willing to go to prison and to keep still while people are calling you thief. Well—and here's my ace of trumps, mister—if you don't hand out the cash I'll tell that you didn't take the money!"

David sank slowly into Kate Morgan's chair, and gazed stunned at the woman, whose look grew more and more triumphant as she noted the effect of her card. His mind comprehended her threat only by degrees, but at length the threat's significance was plain to him.

If he didn't pay her, she would clear his name, He must pay her money to retain his guilt.

"I guess I'll get the money—don't you think?" she asked.

He did not answer. Temptation closed round him. Temptation coming in its present form would have been stronger in his darker days, but even now it was mighty in its strength. Why should he bear his disgrace longer? This woman could clear him; would clear him, if he did not pay. And he had no money—almost none. He had merely to say "no"—that was all.

In these first dazed moments he really did not know which was the voice of temptation and which the voice of right. One voice said, "To refuse will be to destroy hundreds of people." And the other voice said, "To pay blackmail is wrong." Desire took advantage of this moral disagreement to order his reply.

"I shall not pay you a cent!"

"Oh, yes you will," she returned confidently.

"I shall not!—not a cent!" he said, with wild exultation.

"You know what'll happen if you don't?"

"Yes. You'll tell. All right—tell!"

She studied his flushed face and excited eyes. "You're in earnest?"

"Don't I look it! I shall not pay you a cent! Understand? Not a cent!"

He had risen, and she too now rose. "Oh, you'll pay something," she said with a note of coaxing. "I'm not as high as I once was. Fifty dollars would help me a lot."

"Not a cent!"

"Twenty-five?"

"Not a cent, I said."

"Well, you'll wish you had!" she said vindictively, and turned and walked out of the office.

He dropped back into his chair. So he was going to be righted before the world!—at last! Vivid, thrilling dreams flashed through his brain—dreams of honour, of success, of love!... Then, slowly, his mind began to clear; he began to see the other results of Lillian Drew's disclosure. His five years would have been uselessly spent—lost. And the people of the Mission—Quick visions pictured the consequence to them.

He sprang up, holding fast to just one idea among all that confused his brain. He must stick to his old plan; the people must keep Morton. He must find Lillian Drew and silence her. But where find her? He had not asked her address, he had not even watched which direction she had gone. Perhaps even now she might be telling someone.

He seized his hat, and hurried from the room. As he came out upon the sidewalk, a tall woman who had been standing across the street, started over to meet him. At sight of her he stopped, and gave a great sigh of relief.

"You're looking for me, aren't you?" she asked, when she had come up.

"Yes."

"I knew you'd be changing your mind, so I waited," she said with a smile of triumph. "I knew you'd pay!"