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Updated: May 14, 2025
With the departure of Kearn Thode on his mission Gentleman Geoff sank into a stupor from which all Billie's efforts failed to arouse him. She glanced at the little watch on her wrist. Twenty minutes past four! One hour for the massive door to hold against those crashing blows which seemed beating upon her brain.
Mason North and the Halsteads had satisfied themselves of that beyond a shadow of a doubt. But what if Wiley had really stumbled upon some facts unknown to them all which might throw a shadow across her title? Was it an idle threat to coerce her or a very tangible menace? She raised troubled eyes to meet Kearn Thode's smiling ones across the table and her native courage came back in a swift rush.
"There is every indication that I'll be over myself before then, nursing or something. I'm not the kind to sit at home when there's work to be done. But, Kearn ?" "What, Billie?"
Larkin heard it from Ben Hallock and sent Kearn Thode down here to find it, if he could. Mr. Chase also learned it, and his partner came on the same errand, but I had the story from the lineal descendant of the first Spanish owner, and the one person in the world who knew where it was located, Juana Reyes.
He has looked thoroughly into the proposition according to his judgment and he has the utmost faith in it or he wouldn't plan to back it at all. Are you sure, Kearn?" "Which means that you are not; I haven't succeeded in convincing you." Thode shrugged. "What chance would I have of convincing your father? I'm warning you, Win, I can't do any more.
It is your present position, the Murdaugh money, a brilliant future and a name, against the Pool of the Lost Souls!" "I was sorry to have missed you at my sister's, although I do not think you would have welcomed my appearance!" laughed Kearn Thode. "I was striped with plaster like a savage in war paint."
Winnie's breath came fast. "What a magnificent stunt for a chap to do! Was he a Mexican?" "No, an American. His name is Kearn Thode." "What! Who?" Winnie exploded. "You can't mean ! For the love of Pete!" Willa stared at him in dawning comprehension. "You don't mean that you know him?" "'Know him'?" he repeated, jubilantly. "I should rather think I do!
In the days that followed, Kearn Thode pondered long and deeply upon his trust. The arrangement with his sister would be an easy matter to adjust, he knew, but the immediate task confronting him was more difficult of solution.
In her maddening anxiety for Tia Juana's safety, Willa had given no thought to the means Wiley must have used to reinstate himself once more in her cousin's willing eyes. Was this evidence of fury directed against her because she had been the unwitting cause of Kearn Thode's defection in the matter of the two dances, or was something deeper and more significant in the wind?
The Halsteads sat stunned, and Harrington Chase, his face a greenish gray, had slumped in his chair. Only Starr Wiley, his eyes glittering and a sinister sneer curling his thin lips, looked on imperturbably. Winthrop North gasped. Then he hurried forward. "Good work, Kearn! Oh, Willa!" His voice broke as he took her hands from his father's and wrung them hard.
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