"What happened after you gave it to Starr Wiley?"
"Nothing. I realized what I had done when it was too late, of course, and I lived in just plain hell for the next four weeks, waiting for the blow to fall, but it didn't. At last I couldn't stand the strain any longer; I went to Starr and asked him if he'd put it through, and he said he hadn't. He knew when he accepted it from me that it was forged. I had given him a song-and-dance about it being some money coming to me from your grandfather's estate, but it hadn't fooled him for a minute.
"I groveled at his feet and told him I'd work my fingers to the bone to pay it back, but he said I could do that in his way, at his own time. He's held me under his thumb ever since, and when he got in town a few days ago he sent for me and forced me to try to get a line on this Tia Juana woman through you. I hated it, Willa, but, God! what could I do?"
"What you are going to do now." Willa rose with decision. "You're going to Mason North at once, and make a clean breast of the whole thing."
"I couldn't! I thought of that, but you don't know the old boy—"
"I know he's square, and I guess I can handle him, if you can't. I'm going with you and I'll reimburse him for the four thousand, to let the check go through. Then you can tell Wiley to go—to go ahead and show you up."
"Willa!" Something very like a sob welled up in his throat. "You would do that for me, after—after——"
"You didn't do anything very dreadful to me, Vernon."
"But I promised to spy on you."
"That's all right. Wiley is in this affair simply on a business deal as he told you to-day, although I doubt the squareness as far as he is concerned. But I'm out for higher stakes—" She paused, clinching her hands. "Never mind about that. I'm going to 'phone Mr. North, and see if we can catch him at home."