Tom Van Dorn laid hungry eyes upon Margaret Fenn; Margaret Fenn looked ravenously upon all that Van Dorn had; his talent, his position, his worldly goods, estates and chattels. He wanted what she had. He had what she wanted, and by way of commission in negotiating the bargain, the devil took two souls--not such large souls so far as that goes; but still the devil seems to have been the only one in the transaction who profited. June came--June and the soft night wind, and the warm stars; June with its new, deep foliage and its fragrant grass and trees and flowers; June with a mocking bird singing through the night to its brooding mate; June came with its poets leaning out of windows into the night hearing love songs in the rhythmic whisper of lagging feet strolling under the shade of elms. And under cover of a June night, breathing in the sensuous meaning of the time like a charmed potion, Judge Van Dorn, who personated justice to twenty-five thousand people, went forth a slinking, cringing beast to woo! Here and there a lamp blinked through the foliage. The footfalls of late homecomers were heard a long way off; the voices of singers--a serenading party out baying at the night--was heard as the breeze carried the music upon its sluggish ebb and flow. To avoid belated homecomers, Judge Van Dorn crossed the street; the clanging electric car did not find him with its search-light, though he felt shielded by its roar as he stepped over the iron railing about the Fenn home and came softly across the lawn upon the grass. On the verandah, hidden by summer vines, he sat a moment alone, panting, breathless, though he had come up but four steps, and had mounted them gently. A rustle of woman's garments, the creaking of a screen door, the perfume that he loved, and then she stood before him--and the next moment he had her in his arms. For a minute she surrendered without struggling, without protest, and for the first time their lips met. Then she warded him off. "No--no, Tom. You sit there--I'll have this swing," and she slipped into a porch swing and finally he sat down. "Now, Tom," she said, "I have given you everything to-night. I am entirely at your mercy; I want you to be as good to me as I have been to you." "But, Margaret," he protested, "is this being good to me, to keep me a prisoner in this chair while you--" "Tom," she answered, "there is no one in the house. I've just called Henry up by long distance telephone at the Secretary of State's office in the capitol building. I've called him up every hour since he got there this afternoon, to make him remember his promise to me. He hasn't taken a thing on this trip--I'm sure; I can tell by his voice, for one thing." The man started to speak. She stopped him: "Now listen, Tom. He'll have that charter for the Captain's company within half an hour and will start home on the midnight train. That will give us just an hour together--all alone, Tom, undisturbed."