"Oh, he says he is, but he's not. He never took that five thousand dollars from St. Christopher's. He pretends he did, but he didn't. You hear that, little girl?--he didn't. Phil Morton took it. I know, because I got it.--D'you understand now?--that he's not a thief?--that he's ten thousand miles above you? And yet you, you skinny little nothing, you've got the nerve to think you're going to catch him! Oh, Lord!" "You're drunker than I thought!" sneered Kate. "If it wasn't true, d'you suppose he'd be paying me to keep still about it?" "Pay you to keep still about his not being a thief! And you want me to believe that too?" Kate laughed with contempt. Then she inquired solicitously: "Would you like a bucket of water over you to sober you a bit?" At this moment the hall door opened and David entered the room. He paused in astonishment. "What's the matter?" he asked sharply. The two had turned at his entrance, and, their faces ablaze with anger, were now glaring at him. Kate was the first to speak, and her words tingled with her wrath. "Nothing. Only this charming lady friend of yours--don't come too near her breath!--has been telling me that you didn't take the money from the Mission--that Mr. Morton did--that she got it--that you're paying her not to tell that you're innocent." The colour slowly faded from David's face. He held his eyes a moment on Kate's infuriate figure, and then he gazed at Lillian Drew. She gazed back at him defiantly, but the thought that her betrayal of the secret might cut off her supplies began to cool her anger. David thought only of the one great fact that the truth had at last come out; and finally he exclaimed, almost stupidly, more in astoundment than wrath: "So this's how you've kept it secret!" Kate paled. Her eyes widened and her lips fell apart. She caught herself against her desk and stared at him. "So--it's the truth!" she whispered with dry lips. But David did not hear her. His attention was all pointed at Lillian Drew. "This is the way you've kept it, is it!" he said. "She's the only one I've told," she returned uneasily. Her effrontery began to flow back upon her. "She's only one more you've got to square things with. Come, give me a little coin and I'll get out, and give you a chance to settle with her." "You've had your last cent!" he said harshly. "Oh, no, I haven't. I don't leave till you come up with the dough!" She sat down, and looked defiantly at him. Kate moved slowly, tensely, across to David, gripped his arms and turned her white, strained face upon his. "So--you never took that Mission money!" Her voice was an awed, despairing whisper. Her tone, her fierce grip, her white face, sent through him a sickening shiver of partial understanding. "I'm sorry--but you know the truth." She gazed wide-eyed at him; then her voice, still hardly more than a whisper, broke out wildly: "Yes--yes--you took it, David! Say that you took it!"