All at once, as if groping in the dark, her hand had at last found the door, she said abruptly: "But one night a Mexican tried to kiss me, and father shot him. He fell across my counter, grabbing at me. It was awful! The next night father was called to the side entrance, and when we found him there was a knife in his back, and he was dead!" She rose. "What, you're going to leave me there, Dodo?" he said maliciously, forcing a smile. "You're worse than a dime novel!" "That's enough for now. It tires me! The rest for another time," she answered. "Now you can understand all that happened after,--I never had half a chance!" The next time she began all over again, saying: "My real story is much more terrible. Now, this is the truth!" These inventions usually started from her insistence on discussing his wife with Massingale. She had an imperative curiosity, which always shocked his sense of delicacy, to hear him criticize her, to admit her faults, even to drop a hint that there might be other men--that, in fact, she lived her own life; which would mean, to Dodo's illogical need of self-justification, that he also had the right. But Massingale curtly, peremptorily refused to be drawn into such discussions. Whereupon a coolness arose, and she sought to annoy him by pretended pasts. He knew that she was embroidering, and yet the very facility of it amazed him. The past was one thing: he did not like her references to Sassoon and Blood and what they implied, even though he was sure it was specially fabricated for his confusion. So, as soon as peace had been restored, he always pressed her for a denial. Whereupon with a laugh, after some coaxing, she would admit the fiction. But the moment the next cause of conflict came, she was always quits by turning on him and declaring: "You know all I told you? Well, _half_ of it was true!" * * * * * At the end of the week she received an answer from Mr. Peavey. Contrary to custom, it was not typewritten, but performed in his minute and regular hand: "_Dear Miss Baxter_: "Your letter has caused me the utmost pain. Please do not, I beg you, judge me by appearances! I have found, to my cost, that I have been greatly misled in the character of a person I trusted. I must see you and explain everything. I am now in the Middle West. I shall be able to run over to New York for five hours on Thursday next, and shall advise you. Believe me, this is the first opportunity I can make. "Your devoted friend, "O. B. PEAVEY."