A smile of low cunning came over North’s villainous face. He used his small remaining strength to say: “That you’ll never know. You’ve spiked your own guns. Nobody knows but me,—and I won’t tell!” Alarmed, Wise tried another tone. “This won’t do, North,” he said; “whatever your crime, you can’t refuse that last act of expiation. Tell where she is, and die the better for it.” “No,” gasped the dying man. “Bad I’ve lived and bad I’ll die. You’ll never find Betty Varian. There are standing orders to do away with her if anything happens to me, and,”—he tried to smile,—“something has happened!” “It sure has,” Wise said, and looked at him with real pity, for the man was suffering tortures. “But, I command you, North, by the blood you have shed, by the two human lives you have taken, by the heart of the wife and mother that you have broken,—I charge you, give up your secret while you have strength to do so!” For a moment, North seemed to hesitate. A little stimulant administered by the doctor gave him a trifle more strength, but then his face changed,—he turned reminiscent. “Good work,” he said, it seemed, exultingly. “When I first found the cave a year ago, I began to plan how I could get the Varians to take this house. They little thought I brought it about through the real estate people——” “Never mind all that,” Wise urged him, “where’s Betty?” “Betty? ah, yes,—Betty——” His mind seemed to wander again and Varian gave him a few drops more stimulant. “Get it out of him,” he said to the detective, “this will lose all efficacy in another few moments. He is going.” “Going, am I?” and North was momentarily alert. “All right, Doc, I’ll go and my secret will go with me.” “Where is Betty?” Wise leaned over the miserable wretch, as if he would drag the secret from him by sheer will power. But the other’s will power matched his own. “Betty,” he said,—“oh, yes, Betty. Really, my wife’s daughter, you know,—my step-daughter,—I had a right to her, didn’t I——” “‘Step’!” Wise cried, “Step, that you signed to those letters was short for Stepfather!” “Yes, of course; my wife didn’t mean to tell me that story,—didn’t know she did,—she babbled in her sleep, and I got it out of her by various hints and allusions. Mrs Varian never knew, so I bled the old man. My, he was in a blue funk whenever I attacked him about it!” “Where is she now?” Wise hinted. “No, sir, you don’t get it out of me. You caught me,—damn you! now I’ll make you wish you hadn’t!” and Lawrence North died without another word. Baffled, and spent with his exhausting efforts, Wise left the dead man in the doctor’s care and returned to the library. He found Zizi there. She had listened from the hall and had overheard much that went on, but she couldn’t bring herself to go where the wounded man lay. “Oh, Penny,” she sobbed, “he didn’t tell! Maybe if I had gone in I could have got it out of him! But I c-couldn’t look at him——”