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voice, ashamed of his lack of charity and striving to hide it with fictitious fury.

“Too dangerous, travelling light at the speed we’re doing,” lied Roy, preparing to move forward at the wave of a bowser attendant. “Must have somebody, or something, in the back.”

“I’m paying you for this trip———.”

“I know you are, Mr. Harley, but you haven’t bought the car!”

The car moved forward to the pump.

“Besides, if you don’t mind me saying so,” continued Roy, placatingly, “it’s not good for a man to sit and imagine things———.”

“How many?” demanded the bowser attendant.

“Fill her up,” ordered Roy, fumbling in his pocket for money. “And have a look at the oil, will you?”

“Right-o.”

“———that haven’t happened, ten to one,” Roy continued, as though no interruption had occurred. “No sense in it, at all. There’s more than a chance that Mrs. Harley is quite all right———.”

“There’s no chance, Roy. I know it. I feel it.”

“Oh, rats! You don’t know anything. Nobody knows anything. Wait and see. That’s my advice.”

“I ought never to have let her go.”

“That’s what we all reckoned,” agreed Roy unguardedly.

Harley stiffened.

“We?” he questioned sharply.

“You’ve been a damn fool, you know,” was the blunt answer. “Any man is who plays around with a woman like Pat Weybourn.”

The man who had so recently expressed his scorn of the opinions of local society experienced an odd sense of dismay. For a moment he was taken aback by the condemnation in the frank words, then a defensive anger surged over him.

“What do you know of Pat Weybourn?” he demanded harshly. “What have my private affairs to do with you?”