"It is useless to rave and storm," said Tregar quietly. "I hold the cards."
"Was it necessary to humiliate me in the presence of Miss Westfall?" demanded Ronador bitterly. With all his sullenness there was in his tone a marked respect for the older man.
"It was necessary to end this romantic masquerade!" insisted Tregar. "Why are you here?"
"I—I came in a flash of panic. It seemed to me that after all I—I could not trust to other hands when the dead thing stirred." Ronador's face was white and haggard. In that instant his forty-four years lay heavily upon his shoulders.
"Have I ever misplaced your trust?" reminded Tregar sombrely. "Have I not even kept your secret from your father?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me," asked the Baron bluntly, "why you must come to America and hysterically complicate this damnable mess by—a bullet!"
Greatly agitated, Ronador fell to pacing to and fro. Heavy cypress shadows upon the water moved like pointing fingers.
"Is there nothing I may keep from you?" broke from him a little bitterly.
"Why," insisted the older man, "have you seen fit to conduct yourself with the irrationality of a madman by trundling a music-machine about the country and making love to a girl you tried in a moment of fright and frenzy—to kill?"