"Couldn't lie down and quit, could I? A man in the hole I was can't pick and choose." He smiled lazily at her and took a muffin from a plate handed him by the waiter. "My turn to ask questions. I want the full story of how you guessed I was in the west shaft of the Golden Nugget." "Haven't you heard? It was Moya guessed it--from the tapping on the pipe, you know." "So I've been told. Now let's have the particulars." His eyes went arrow-straight into hers and rested there. India told him. She knew that Ned would make a safer husband for Moya than this forceful adventurer. It was quite likely to be on the cards that he cared nothing for her friend. Indeed, his desperate flirtation with Joyce indicated as much. Moreover, Moya would not marry a man whom she could not respect, one who made his living by dishonest practices. But in spite of all these objections Miss Kilmeny told her cousin how Moya had fought for his life against ridicule and unbelief, regardless of what any of them might think of her. He made one comment when she had finished. "So I have to thank Moya Dwight for my life." "Moya alone. They laughed at her, but she wouldn't give up. I never saw anybody so stubborn. There's something splendid in her. She didn't care what any of us thought. The one thing in her mind was that she was going to save you. So Mr. Bleyer had to get up from dinner and find out from the maps where that pipe went. He traced it to the old west shaft of the Golden Nugget." "And what _did_ you think?" he asked, watching her steadily. "I admired her pluck tremendously." "Did Verinder--and Bleyer--and Lady Farquhar?" "How do I know what they thought?" flamed the girl. "If Mr. Verinder is cad enough----" She stopped, recalling certain obligations she was under to that gentleman. "Why did she do it?" She flashed a look of feminine scorn at him. "You'll have to ask Moya that--if you want to know." He nodded his head slowly. "That's just what I'm going to do." "You'll have more time to talk with her--now that Joyce is engaged and daren't flirt with you," his cousin suggested maliciously. Though he tried to carry this off with a laugh, the color mounted to his face. "I've been several kinds of an idiot in my time." "Don't you dare try any nonsense with Moya," her friend cried, a little fiercely. "No," he agreed. "She's not Joyce." He had an answer for that. "I'd marry her to-morrow if she'd take me." "You mean you...?" "Yes. From the first day I met her again. And I didn't know it till I was down in that hell hole. Shall I tell you something?" He put his arms on the table and leaned toward her with shining eyes. "She was with me down there most of the time. Any time I stopped to listen I could hear her whisper courage in that low, sweet voice of hers." "You know about her and Ned?" "Yes." "He's a better man than you are, Jack." "Yes." "But you won't let him have her." "No, by God, not unless she loves him."