"It is the chief reason why I couldn't afford to do anything more than I have done. Goodness knows, I have tried in every way to warn you, even to pointing out the man who is shadowing you. To do it, I have had to deceive my father. I have been hoping that you would understand and go away." "Wait a minute," he commanded. "Let me get it straight; you still believe that the thing I did was a criminal thing?" "We needn't go into that part of it again," she returned, with a sort of placid impatience. "Once I thought that there might be some way in which you had justified yourself to yourself, but now----" "That isn't the point," he interrupted roughly. "What I want to know is this: Do you still believe it is a crime?" "Of course, it is a crime; I know it, you know it, all the world knows it." Again he sat back and took time to gather up a few of the scattered shards and fragments. When he spoke it was to say: "I think the debt is on the other side, Miss Charlotte; I think you owe me something. You probably won't understand when I say that you have robbed me of a very precious thing--my faith in the ultimate goodness of a good woman. You believe--you have always believed--that I am a criminal; and yet you have been weak enough to let expediency seal your lips. I am truer to my code than you are to yours, as you shall see if the day ever comes when I shall be convinced that I did wrong. But that is neither here nor there. You sent for me: what is it that you want me to do?" "I want to give you one more chance to disappoint the Wahaska gossips," she replied, entirely unmoved, as it seemed, by his harsh arraignment. "Do you know why this man Broffin is still waiting?" "I can guess. He is taking a long chance on the chapter of accidents." "Not altogether. Three days ago, Mr. Galbraith had Miss Grierson telegraph to New Orleans for some one of the bank officials. Yesterday I learned that the man who is coming is the teller who waited on me and who gave you the money. As soon as I heard that, I began to try to find you." Griswold did not tell her that the danger she feared was a danger past. "Go on," he prompted. "You are no longer safe in Wahaska," she asserted. "The teller can identify you, and the detective will give him the opportunity. That is doubtless what he is waiting for." "And you would suggest that I make a run for it? Is that why you sent for me?" "It is. You are tempting fate by staying; and, notwithstanding what you have said, I still insist that you owe me something. There is a fast train west at ten o'clock. If you need ready money----" Griswold laughed. It had gone beyond the tragic and was fast lapsing into comedy, farce.