“You saw what happened here to-night,” said Billy, with renewed heat at the other’s silence. “I don’t care what _he_ said, or what you think; she’s no more to blame than——” The other stopped him with a quick, peremptory gesture. “You mistake,” he said shortly. “You’re speaking to the wrong person. I saw nothing. I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t want to.” “What!” cried William, staring. “Let me give you a piece of advice,” said Girard incisively, with an odd whiteness in his face. “Don’t you know better than to bring the name of a woman into a discussion like this? If a girl needs no defense—by Heaven, she needs none! And that’s the end of it. Only a fool talks.” “Yes,” said William, with a sharp breath, after a pause,—“yes; thank you—I’ll remember. But when I meet _him_—” He stopped significantly. “Oh, whatever you please!” said Girard, spreading out his hands lightly, with a smile and a quick, steely gleam in his eyes that cut like a scimitar. “Sorry I’ve got to go—my overcoat is just inside. No, I don’t want to drive, I’d rather walk. Good-by!” He went off in a moment, with long strides, down the carriage-drive to the station, the dance-music growing fainter in the distance. She was dancing still. Her face—her pure, sweet, pleading child’s face—went with him through the moonlight. He knew that look! When helpless things were hurt like that—He couldn’t talk to her that night, nor touch her hand, because of that burning desire to leap on Lawson Barr and choke the life out of him first. CHAPTER FOURTEEN The morrow after the ball was drawing to a close in darkening clouds and an eerie, rushing wind. It had been one of the gray, cold days of spring, with a leaden sky and a pervading damp and chill—a long, long day to some of those in the Leverich house. Rumor whispered that Lawson had been found upon the highroad in the early morning, unconscious, with his face and head cut, and that there were tracks yet on the side piazza from the feet of those who had carried him in from the muddy roads. Rumor said that the wounds had not come from accident. The doctor’s carriage had been there, and had gone again; but the doctor might have come to see Miss Linden, who was also said to be prostrated and in bed, or Mrs. Leverich, who was excused to callers as having a headache. The great house was silent and deserted-looking inside, except for the servants engaged in setting it to rights and carrying the furniture down from the attic, where it had been stored overnight.