"Look here, Madeline, it isn't that Dumont Mapes?" he cried. "You wouldn't shake me for a rake like that, would you?" "I can't tell you who it is," was all the girl would say. "But I want to know," insisted the man. "You've got to tell me." "If you must know, then, it is a man I love--a man I'm going to marry," she answered softly. Wilkinson returned to his desk, to a fresh cigar. This was another problem, and problems were in his line, it seemed. "You're going to marry somebody rich, I suppose," he said at length. A smile crossed her face. "Somebody poor," she answered. "Poor! Why in heaven's name should you marry somebody that's poor?" "Peter, I told you I loved him," she repeated, still smiling. Wilkinson was conscious of a curious, indefinable sensation; an emotion that heretofore had been foreign to his nature. "And--and," he stammered, battling with this new sensation, "he loves you, I suppose?" "I know he does," she answered. The millionaire puffed silently. "He must love you," he went on at length, in brutal tones, "to--to forgive all this." And stretching his arms wide into a circle that included her and himself, he added: "He's willing to forget the past?" The girl did not answer. But on her face was a death-like pallor. "Ah!" he cried, quickly noting her change of colour. "Then he doesn't know!" No one better than Madeline Braine could better realise the full import of this sneer. Advancing toward him, her limbs dragging against her skirts, giving her the appearance of a woman struggling forward on her knees, she caught at one corner of the desk and leaned against it, crying: "Peter, I love this man. You won't--why should he know----" "Why shouldn't he?" was the man's cruel answer. "You love him...." "No, no, no!" she cried. "Don't you understand--we're going away--going West, never to come back. If he doesn't know, all will be well...." "Oh, so everything is going to be lovely," grinned Peter, "until he finds out. But when he finds out? What then?" For a long time she pleaded with him, while he, lolling back comfortably in his chair, leisurely blew rings of smoke in the air. Finally he rose, and held out his hand. "You're sure, Madeline, that you've made up your mind to leave me? Sure?" For answer, the girl inclined her head. Wilkinson frowned. "This interview is at an end. From now on, madam, we'll deal at arm's length." Then he added, laughing brutally: "Until you find it desirable to come back again to me." He unlocked the door and opened it sufficiently to permit her to pass. "Good-day." Without a word she passed out and down the hall. At the entrance she found Jordan, who rose and bowed. "Tell my man," she ordered, pointing to the blue limousine without, "that he need wait no longer--that I shall remain here to-night."