“He wanted to marry you himself,” he said, “and offered me a hundred dollars to write you that letter.”
Stelton sat for a moment open-mouthed at the temerity of his subordinate and then leaped up with a roar like the bellow of a bull.
Juliet pounded hastily on the floor, and the sheepmen appeared just as Stelton fetched Caldwell a kick that sent him half-way across the room.
“Take them both away,” ordered the girl, suddenly feeling faint and ill after the mental and physical struggle of the interview.
When the two had gone she sank back in her chair and faced the awful facts that these men had given her. 264
“Bud! Bud! My lover!” she cried brokenly to herself. “I want you, I need you now to tell me it is all a lie!”
She remained for several minutes sunk in a kind of torpor. Then, as though she had suddenly arrived at some great decision, she rose slowly, but determinedly, and left the room. Finding one of the men, she ordered her horse saddled and retired to change her clothes.
Her mother came in and asked if she were going riding alone.
“Yes, mother,” replied the girl quietly. “I am going to Bud and find out the truth about him. I cannot live like this any longer. I shall go crazy or kill myself. But I promise you this, that I will find father and bring him home to you.”
The eyes of Martha Bissell clouded with long-suppressed tears.