about them now. If I thought she was the woman——"

"What's that?" said Dollar lethargically. "I was almost asleep."

The remarks did not gain weight by repetition, but the broken sentence was finished with some effect: "I'd let her drain the cup."

"I don't wonder," rejoined Dollar, sympathetically.

"Yet you would have me risk my political existence for one of her kidney!"[Pg 71]

[Pg 71]

"I don't follow."

"You would reprieve the apparent murderer, and let the real one continue militant here on earth?"

"I believe she has had her fill of militancy."

"Not she!"

"I'll go bail for her if you like. It was an accident She is heart-broken about it—and you don't know her—I do! I'd back her not to run the risk of such another accident!"

"And what if she rounded on me? However such a thing came out, it would be my ruin, Dollar."

"It wouldn't come out through her!"

A certain fervor crept into the doctor's voice. It was obviously unconscious, and Topham Vinson was far too astute a person to engender consciousness and caution by so much as a rallying syllable. But he did hazard a leading question, subtly introduced as nothing of the sort.

"I'm not trying to get at what I want in a roundabout way," he had the nerve to state. "I've given up trying to pump you, Dollar; but—would it make a very great scandal if we had to fix this thing on this particular young lady?"[Pg 72]

[Pg 72]

"I can't answer about scandals," replied the still not unwary doctor. "It would break hearts—probably cause death—make her a double murderer in her own eyes, and God knows what else as a result! And it wouldn't do anybody the least bit of good, because you would still have to give Croucher 

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