A Warning

"Anyone there beside you?"

"A miner by the name of Peale."

"Know the man?"

It was Verinder that asked the question and Bleyer that answered.

"Yes. A bad lot. One of those that insulted the young ladies."

"Anyhow, he won't warn Kilmeny."

"Not after the mauling that young man gave him. He's still carrying the scars," Bleyer replied with a low laugh. He added briskly, after a moment, "What do you expect to get out of this, Rollins?"

The workman seemed to answer with some embarrassment. "Thought you might give me that lease in the Mollie Gibson I spoke to you about, Mr. Bleyer."

"It's yours--if this comes out as you say, my man. I'd give more than that to call the turn on Mr. Highgrader Kilmeny," Verinder promised.

"And, o' course, you won't give it away that I told."

"Certainly not."

The arrival of a waiter eliminated Joyce as a listener, for the first thing the man did was to close the door between the parlor and the dining-room.

But she had heard enough to know that Jack Kilmeny was in danger of falling into a trap that was being set for him. Verinder had him at last, just as he had promised that he would get him. No doubt they would have witnesses and would send him to prison as they had threatened.

No more than forty-eight hours earlier Joyce would have been on Kilmeny's side instantly. Now her feelings were mixed. It was still impossible for her to think of him without a flare of passion. She was jealous and resentful because she had lost him, but deeper than these lay the anger born of his scornful surrender of her. It was as if his eyes for the first time had seen the real woman stripped of the glamour lent by her beauty. His contemptuous withdrawal from the field had cut like a knife thrust. She wanted to pay him with usury for his cool, hard disdain. And she had the chance. All she had to do was to be silent and he would fall a victim to his own folly.