Her voice sank to a frightened whisper. "He was only bluffing--I beg pardon; only talking," he said, striving to soothe her. "I didn't know until then that I really cared, Larry," she went on. "He frightened me. I asked him questions, and he told me what he and some others have been doing to keep your club from winning." "What did he tell you?" he asked quickly. "He said they had one of your pitchers, I think he said, fixed, and that he had paid some other players to hurt you and to hurt Mr. Wilcox, I think he said. He wanted me to get you to come to meet me somewhere, and they'd kidnap you and someone else--Mr. Swanson, I believe it was." "He's a kindly fellow," commented McCarthy coldly, an angry light gleaming in his blue eyes. "Did he say where this was to take place?" "No. He tried to get me to write you to meet me at some place he named. He said I needn't go there, just get you to come. I told him I would. When he went to sleep I telephoned you because I was so frightened. To-day we had a terrible quarrel. I refused to write to you to meet me at the place he named." Her terror was so evident that her words were not necessary to add conviction. McCarthy laughed a short, rasping laugh. "It's a good joke on him," he explained. "If he and his thugs are hunting for me all over the city and I here in his own home, safe; the last place he would look for me." "You mustn't wait," she urged anxiously. "You mustn't wait here, Larry. He is drinking and I do not know what he might do if he came home and found you here. You must go now." "I'll run back to the hotel and pick up my bodyguard, Swanson," he said steadily, and with an attempt at indifference of manner, "I think I'll be safe." "You'll kiss me goodbye, Larry," she pleaded. "She wouldn't care--if she knew." "She?" he asked. "What do you mean?" He was astonished and curious to learn how the girl knew anything of his growing regard for Betty Tabor. "I knew, I knew," she repeated. "I knew it the first time we met--I knew there was another girl"---- "I'm certain I did not hint at such a thing," he replied with an attempt at dignified bearing. "I have not even told her." "Good-bye," she said. "I hope you're happy, Larry, and please don't think I meant to do wrong." She clung to him weeping until he put away her hands and went out. The girl threw herself face downward upon the lounge and sobbed, this time from a sense of loneliness and perhaps of loss. McCarthy descended the stairs and walked rapidly through the darkened lawn to the street. In spite of his pretense of believing there was no danger he found himself nervous. He walked two blocks toward the street car line, when a taxicab swerved toward the sidewalk. "Taxi, sir, taxi?" asked the driver. "Take you downtown, sir?" McCarthy hesitated an instant. If he hurried back to the hotel and found Swanson he would rid himself of the nervous dread of something intangible which he could not explain.