“Yes.” “Yes, sir, I know my own mind ’bout thet.” “And about staying?” “Yes, sir, I know my own mind ’bout stayin’. We--we gotter stay till mornin’ now.” “We?” he frowned. “Bud, he--he’ll kill us certain.” He spoke more sharply. He was only going around in a circle and he was tired of circles. “Listen, Roxie,” he said. “What you’ve told me about Bud changes everything. It’s evident enough now that I butted in where I don’t belong. If Bud loves you, and you love him, you’re safe enough here, and the quicker I get out the better. What I want you to do is to make what in the army we called a diversion. You stand out of danger and swing open the back door and I’ll cut out the front. Bud ought to be glad enough to see you to forgive your part in it.” The girl cowered away. She did not speak. The silence became tense. “That’s all there is to it,” he went on. “You’re game?” Slowly the full irony of her fate made itself manifest to her. She did not know it as irony. It seemed to her more like some cruelly righteous form of retributive justice. The lie she had told to save the man she loved had been turned against her to threaten his life. She had lied to drive him out of this house away from Bud Childers and this same lie was still working to drive him out--but this time into the clutch of Bud. She did not believe for a moment that he had a chance to escape as he proposed. He did not know Bud. Even if he got through the door, he would not be allowed a hundred yards down the road. If he took to the woods, he would be a stranger there against Bud who knew every foot even by night. Bud would make sure and she could not stop him. The one and only chance she had of protecting Allston now was to keep him here until he was missed at home--until Miss Wilmer and Mr. Howe roused the village and sent out help to him. She had lost her power over Bud by staying without a struggle with Allston. Her one opportunity for regaining her influence had been to send Allston away and release Bud with her own hands. That would have meant something to the man; it would have been a tangible proof of her friendliness that he could have understood. To bring about this opportunity she had deliberately sacrificed whatever good opinion of her Allston may have had. And now Bud, by escaping, had spoiled all those plans just as Allston, by coming, had spoiled all her other plans. It was pitiful. She was stripped of her last vestige of influence over either man. And this at a time when she needed it most; when she had made each an even greater menace to the other. That was because she had lied. It was wrong to lie. God hated a liar. His punishment was terrible and swift. She saw that now as vividly as though it were expressed in some flaming sign in the sky. Trembling the girl clasped her two hands. She wanted to get down on her weak knees and pray for forgiveness. “Why don’t you answer, Roxie?” Allston questioned sharply.