ON leaving Duncan sitting in his roadster before the apartment house, Marjorie had every intention of slipping into the Portland through the drug store. Once safely inside the building she would take refuge in a friend’s apartment and there fight out her problems alone. The desire to confide in Duncan, to beg his assistance was overmastering. She dared not trust herself longer in his presence. In her doubt and agony, and longing for his sympathy, she might betray her passionate love for him. A touch of his hand ... one look from his dear eyes.... Marjorie resolutely kept her face turned toward her goal. Duncan’s affection for his sister was deep and abiding ... he would never believe evil of Janet. Marjorie strangled a sob as she stumbled into the drug store, and for a second she struggled gamely for composure, but the close atmosphere of the room combined with her overstrung state, upset her completely. She stepped appealingly toward the clerk to ask him for a glass of water, but he was busy with some drugs and did not observe her half-fainting condition. Swinging dizzily about, she made blindly for the door, her one instinct to get away from Duncan. With her last remaining strength she pulled open the heavy door and stepped outside. The cold fresh air revived her somewhat, but her confusion of mind was added to by discovering she was standing in busy Fourteenth Street instead of the quiet lobby of the apartment-hotel. She had walked out of the wrong door. Before she could retrace her footsteps, Chichester Barnard stepped to her side. “What good fairy sent you here?” he exclaimed gaily. “I was just going back to my office.” His smile was very winning, but Marjorie was too spent to attempt reply. Her silence claimed his attention, and his startled eyes swept her livid face in consternation. “Good Heavens! Marjorie, what are you doing in the street in this condition?” he turned and hailed a livery carriage from which a passenger had just alighted. “Engaged?” he inquired of the negro driver. “No, suh.” “Jump in, Marjorie,” but she hung back, striving to articulate, then the world turned black, and she hung limp upon his arm. Some hours later Marjorie stirred, sat more erect, and rubbed her eyes and forehead vigorously. The shadows of the late afternoon were lengthening, and she had some difficulty in focusing the objects about her, and eyed her unfamiliar surroundings in complete mystification. “Feeling better, Marjorie?” asked Barnard’s voice from the depths of an easy chair across the room from her, and he rose and switched on the electric lamp. “Where--where--am I?” she demanded. Not pausing for an answer she picked up a tumbler of cold water standing on a table at her elbow, and drank thirstily. Her throat felt parched and dry. “In my rooms,” replied Barnard easily. The tumbler slipped and broke on the polished floor, as Marjorie faced him.