ling," she whispered, and laid her cheek against his sleeve.
"Aren't you being," Winslow's cold voice questioned, "a bit up-stage?"
"If you choose to call it that. . . ."
"If you'll come down to earth you'll realize that I can make or break you, Louis."
"What do you mean?"
"Not a share of the stock I bought for you is in your name. And my money bought it. If I don't choose to turn it over to you, who can force me? And what could you tell the court? That you pulled wires—for pay?"
Carew's arm dropped from his daughter's shoulder. "Are you threatening me?"
"It depends upon what you call it. But without the stock there's nothing left. Round Hill will have to go, and all the rest of it. Hildegarde said you'd think my proposition to her an insult. I told her you'd have too much sense to quarrel with me. So we rode back to see which of us—knows you best." His hesitation gave to his last words a touch of insolence.
Carew spoke to his daughter. "Go up to the house, Hildegarde. I want to have this out alone with Neale."
"No. What is there to discuss with him, Daddy? Let him do his worst. Why should we mind? We shall have each other."
Neale's laugh was disagreeable. "Will you? What about Ethel Hulburt?"
As he saw Hildegarde shrink from him, her hand up as if to ward off a blow, Carew had a feeling that had
