"Yes!" she said, impulsively. "Yes. I'll tell you. If it is wrong for me to tell, then let it be wrong. I'm sick of mystery and secrets and signals and suspense, and--oh, I'm sick of it all! And it's--it's splendid of you to want to help me, after what has happened to you through meeting me! It's your right to know." She paused for breath. And again Gavin wondered at his own inability to feel a single throb of gladness at having come so triumphantly to the end of this particular road. Glumly, he stared down at the vibrant little figure beside him. "There is some of it I don't know, myself," she began. "And lately I've found myself wondering if all I really know is true, or whether they have been deceiving me about some of it. I have no right to feel that way, I suppose, about my own brother. But he's so horribly under Rodney Hade's influence, and--" Again, she paused, seeming to realize she was wandering from the point. And she made a fresh start. "It all began as an adventure, a sort of game, more than in earnest," she said. "At least, looking back, that's the way it seems to me now. As a wonderfully exciting game. You see, everything down here was so thrillingly exciting and interesting to me, even then." "I see." "If you don't mind," she added, "I think I can make you understand it all the better, if you'll let me go back to the beginning. I'll make it as short as I can." "Yes." "I had been brought up in New York, except when we were in Europe or when I was away at school. My father and mother never let me see or know anything of real life. Dad was old, even as far back as I can remember. Mother was his second wife. Milo's mother was his first wife, and she died ever so long ago. Milo is twenty years older than I am. Milo came down here on a cruise, when he got out of college. And he fell in love with this part of the country. He persuaded Dad to buy him a farm here, and he has spent fifteen years in building it up to what it is now. He and my mother didn't didn't get on awfully well together. So Milo spent about all his time down here, and I hardly ever saw him. Then Dad and Mother died, within a day of each other, during the flu epidemic. And Milo came on, for the funeral, of course, and to wind up the estate. Then he wanted me to come down here and live with him. He said he was lonely. And I was still lonelier.