"Mason North's." His voice was a mere strained whisper. "I must have been crazy to do such a thing!"
"What sum did you make it out for?"
"Four thousand dollars." He gazed at her as if hypnotized, replying mechanically under the sheer dominance of her will.
"Was it for speculation or in payment of some sort of debt?"
"A debt of honor!" He laughed in measureless self-contempt. "Poker."
"I see. But, Vernon, don't make me drag it out of you like this. Tell me the whole story."
"It was before Starr went to Mexico." Vernon hesitated and then the words came with a rush from his overburdened breast. "He was playing up strong to Angie, and he saw I didn't like it. Father is hipped about him and so is old North; they think he's the coming man in the oil game, and he may be for all I know, but I'd heard other things about him and I wasn't keen on having him for a brother-in-law. He began to jolly me along; made up parties and wanted me to pal around with him. He's older and he goes with the swiftest bunch in town, and, like a regular saphead, I was flattered. He put me up at his club, and I got into some pretty high play, away over my head, but I wouldn't have him or his friends think I was a piker, so I stuck.
"He won usually, and I almost got writer's cramp making out I. O. U.'s for him. Then his manner changed a bit and he began kidding me. He was good-natured with it at first, but after a while he grew nasty, and one night he taunted me before the whole crowd about my four-flushing.
"I'd been drinking and it made me wild. I don't know what put the idea in my head, but I brooded over it and I couldn't see any other way out. Father had said when he paid my debts before that it was the last time, and he meant it. I—I took a check from his desk—he and Mason North have accounts in the same bank—and I made it out, copying the signature from an old letter."
His voice was getting lower and lower, and finally it halted, but Willa prompted him firmly.