She uttered a little, mocking laugh. "Pardon me. It was not a fair question, and I shouldn't have asked it; but your hesitation was sufficient answer." Then, as he broke into a heated denial, she went on: "Like most men, you think a woman has but one asset upon which to trade. However, if I felt responsible for your difficulties, that was my affair; and if I determined to help extricate you, that also concerned me alone." He stepped forward as if to protest, but she silenced his speech with an imperious little stamp of her foot. "This spasm of righteousness on your part is only temporary--yes it is"--as he attempted to break in--"and now that you have voiced it and freed your mind, you can feel at rest. Have you not repeatedly asserted that to win Miss Wayland you would use any means that offered? You are not really sincere in this sudden squeamishness, and I would like you better if you had seized your advantage at once, without stopping to consider whence or how it came. That would have been primitive--elemental--and every woman loves an elemental lover." He was no subtle casuist, and found himself without words to reply. The girl's sharp challenging of his motives had disconcerted him without helping him to a clearer understanding of his own mind, and in spite of the cheering turn his fortunes had taken it was in no very amiable mood that he left her at last, no whit the wiser for all his questioning. In the hotel lobby below he encountered the newspaper reporter who had fallen under Fraser's spell upon their first arrival from the North. The man greeted him eagerly. "How d'y'do, Mr. Emerson. Can you give me any news about the fisheries?" "No!" "I thought there might be something new bearing on my story." "Indeed! So you are the chap who wrote that article some time ago, eh?" "Yes, sir. Good, wasn't it?" "Doubtless, from the newspaper point of view. Where did you get it?" "From Mr. Clyde." "Clyde! You mean Fraser--Frobisher, I should say." "No, sir. Alton Clyde! He was pretty talkative the night I saw him." The reporter laughed, meaningly. "Drunk, do you mean?" "Oh, not exactly drunk, but pretty wet. He knew what he was saying, however. Can't you give me something more?" "Nothing." Boyd hurried to his hotel, a prey to mingled anger and contrition. So Fraser had told the truth, after all, and with a kind of sullen loyalty had chosen to remain under a cloud himself rather than inform on a friend. It was quite in keeping with the fellow's peculiar temperament. As it happened, Boyd found the two men together and lost no time in acquainting them with his discovery. "I've come to apologize to you," he said to Fraser, who grinned broadly and was seized with a sudden abashment which stilled his tongue. Emerson turned to Clyde. "Why did you permit me to do this injustice?"