“Very,” said Warden.  “I think I understand.  But why didn’t Lawler marry you to save your reputation—­if you loved him so much?”

Her smile was shallow and hard.

“I expect Lawler thought my reputation didn’t need saving—­or wasn’t worth it.  For he refused me, point blank.”

“Gallant—­eh?” mocked Warden.

She laughed.  “Well, I don’t know that I blame him.  I have thought, since, that I went at it very crudely.  I should have played the innocent instead of doing what I did.  He’s wary as a serpent, Gary, and wise.”

“Do you still love him?”

Her eyes flashed spitefully.  “I hate him, now!  I think I was merely infatuated.  I thought it was love, but I can see now that it wasn’t.  I don’t think I ever really have loved a man, Gary.”

Warden laughed.  He knew she had told him the truth—­he could see truth in her eyes.

“He killed Link and Givens,” said Warden.  “Did you see it?” At her nod he went on:  “Just how did it happen?”

She told him, and he evinced disappointment.  Then, during a silence, he watched her keenly, a gleam of craft in his eyes.

“How much do you hate him, Della?”

Her eyes narrowed and she regarded him steadily, noting the subtle glow in his eyes.  She smiled, with sinister understanding.

“You want me to swear that he killed those two men wantonly, Gary—­is that it?” She laughed mirthlessly; “I would do it if—­if I didn’t have to risk my precious reputation.”

“You won’t risk your reputation,” exulted Warden.  “I’ll fix that.  We don’t want to charge him openly with the murder—­and he can’t be convicted without evidence.  What we want to do is to hold a threat of exposure over him—­to fix him so that he won’t ever be able to run for an office in this state—­as he intends to.  For they are grooming him, right now.  And the governor is back of the scheme to break him—­you know that.  If you’ll sign a statement to the effect that you were a witness of the murder, and that Lawler was the aggressor, I’ll hold it over him, and we’ll make him get down off his hind legs and be good.  When I show him the statement you can be sure he will never want to stand trial.  And we won’t force him.  We’ll let the court at Willets examine him; and they’ll have to let him off.”

“It would be satisfying—­wouldn’t it, Gary?” she said, after a time.

“You’re a brick, Della!” he laughed.

She got up and stood beside him as he wrote.  And Warden did not see the designing light in her eyes as she watched him.  And her smile, as she signed her name to what he had written, was inscrutable—­containing much knowledge of Warden’s motives, and concealing still more of her own.

In her room, while undressing, she laughed.

CHAPTER XXVI

A MENACE APPEARS