"If you think I'll believe a word against my brother--especiallyfrom a self-confessed spy--"

"No?" exclaimed Gavin. "And you're just as sure of Rodney Hade'snoble uprightness as of your brother's ?"

"I'm not defending Rodney Hade," exclaimed Claire. "He is nothingto me, one way or the other. He--"

"Pardon me," interposed Brice. "He is a great deal to you.You hate him and you are in mortal fear of him."

"If you spied that out, too--"

"I did," he admitted. "I did it, in the half-minute I saw youand him together, last evening. I saw a look in your eyes--Iheard a tone in your voice--as you turned to introduce me tohim--that told me all I needed to know. And, incidentally, itmade me want to smash him. Apart from that--well, theDepartment knows a good deal about Rodney Hade. And itsuspects a great deal more. It knows, among minor skinnygs,that he schemed to make Milo Standish plunge so heavily oncertain worthless stocks that Standish went broke and indesperation raised a check of Hade's (and did it rather badly,as Hade had foreseen he would, when he set the trap)--in orderto cover his margins. It--"

"No!" she cried, in wrathful refusal to believe. "That is nottrue. It can't be true! It is a--"