“Miss Jones, I planned for you to overhear, and believe, what passed between Jack and me--though Jack had no knowledge of what I was doing. I thought that if you discovered that Jack was in love with another woman--and had been living with her--your insulted pride would cause you to break with Jack and give no reason.” “Yes--go on,” breathed the girl. “You see, Jack was in the worst sort of a predicament. He was married to me; he was dependent as to his future upon his father; and his father was trying to press him into an immediate marriage with you. It was a matter of days. Had he told the truth or had he for no explained reason broken with you--either would have ended him with his father. There was only one way out of the situation that would not ruin Jack, and that was for you to be the one to break it off. To play upon you so that you would do that, that’s what I’ve been trying to do.” “I see.” The girl, grayish pale, regarded Mary in dazed wonderment. “But why did you, just a moment ago, try to make me believe that you were Jack’s--his--his mistress?” “To keep Jack’s father from learning the truth. Don’t you see it? If you should tell his father that you had learned that Jack had a mistress, it would not injure Jack’s prospects nearly so much as if you told him that Jack had a wife.” “And, Maisie,” Jack cut in, “if I have steadied down, it’s because Mary made me! I want you to know that!” The blue-eyed girl, standing very still, and breathing very tensely, made no response, but kept her gaze fastened upon Mary. Mary tried to guess what was passing in the mind of this girl--young, willful, of proven jealousy and temper, who, holding that marriage certificate in her hand, held also Mary’s fate. What was that girl going to do? A minute or more passed, all three of them motionless and silent--a space Mary was never to forget. Then the tableau was sharply broken by a soft knocking at the door of the suite. The three turned about, just as the unlatched door swung cautiously open and into the room stepped the elder Morton, his masterful face bouqueted with a smile. He stopped short and the smile was plucked away.