"Endicott."
"I don't understand," murmured Lorna. "I have not spoken with Ralph for two days. You—were you fighting with him?"
"I tried to defend myself," snarled Degger. "He caught me unaware. I had no idea he was such a brute."
"Oh!"
"He'll come to you and brag about it, all right, when time has erased the few marks I put on him. I fought back the best I could. But he gave me no real chance—none at all."
"What did Ralph attack you for?" the girl asked, her practical sense coming to the fore. It was not easy for her to believe that Ralph Endicott had been so unfair as Degger declared.
"Oh, we had words," was the latter's hesitating reply.
"Over what?"
He looked at her from under lowered lids. The color receded from his face. The corners of his lips curled in a wolfish smile. He was not a pretty sight.
"It was nothing you would care to hear about, Miss Nicholet," was his apparently evasive reply.