“I don’t ask you to believe what I’m going to tell you.  But it’s all true.  It began this way: 

“One night, six months ago, as Milo and I were sitting on the veranda, we heard a scream—­a hideous sound it was—­from the mangrove swamp.  And a queer creature in drippy white came crawling out of—­”

“Wait!”

Brice’s monosyllable smashed into the current of her scarce-started narrative with the jarring suddenness of a pistol shot.  She stared up at him in amaze.  For, seen through the starlight, his face was working strangely.  And his voice was vibrant with some mighty emotion.

“Wait!’ he repeated.  “You shan’t go on.  You shan’t tell me the rest.  I’m a fool.  For I’m throwing away the best chance that could have come to me.  I’m throwing it away with my eyes open, and because I’m a fool.”

“I—­I don’t understand,” she faltered, bewildered.

“No,” he said roughly.  “You don’t understand.  That’s just why I can’t let you go on.  And, because I’m a fool, I can’t play out this hand, where every card is mine.  I’ll despise myself, always, for this, I suppose.  And it’s a certainty that I’ll be despised.  It means an end to a career I found tremendously interesting.  I didn’t need the money it brought.  But I—­”

“What in the world are you talking about?” she demanded, drawing a little away from him.  “I—­”

“Listen,” he interrupted.  “A lot of men, in my line and in others, have come a cropper in their careers, because of some woman.  But I’m the first to come such a cropper on account of a woman with a white soul and the eyes of a child,—­a woman I scarcely know, and who has no interest in me.  But, to-night, I shall telegraph my resignation.  Some saner man can take charge.  There are enough of our men massed in this vicinity to choose from.  I’m going to get out of Florida and leave the game to play itself to an end, without me.  I’m an idiot to do it.  But I’d be worse than an idiot to let you trust me and let you tell me things that would wreck your half-brother and bring sorrow and shame to you.  I’m through!  And I can’t even be sorry.”

“Mr. Brice,” she said, gently, “I’m afraid your terrible experiences, this afternoon and last evening, have unsettled your mind, a little.  Just sit still there, and rest.  I am going to run the boat to shore and—­”

“You’re right,” he laughed, ruefully, as he made way for her to start the engine.  “My experiences have ‘unsettled’ my mind.  And now that I’ve spoiled my own game, I’ll tell you the rest—­as much of it as I have a right to.  It doesn’t matter, any longer.  Hade knows—­or at least suspects.  That’s why he tried to get me killed.  In this century, people don’t try to have others killed, just for fun.  There’s got to be a powerful motive behind it.  Such a motive as made a man last evening try to knife your half-brother.  Such a motive as induced Hade to get me out of the way.  He knows.  Or he suspects.  And that means the crisis must come, almost at once.  The net will close.  Whether or not it catches him in it.”