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Rh "Come in, Steve," she called out to him. "Barry's here. We were just talking about you."

"And I've just been talking about you," replied Steve as he entered the room, giving scant notice to Barry, and seated himself at the end of the table.

"What about me?" she inquired.

"I've just heard," he replied, "about the affair up at Tracy's the other night, and about the way that bully-ragging lawyer heckled you. I was going right up there to take it out of his hide, but I thought I'd better come in first and get the thing straight."

"That's right, Steve. That's what Barry did. Didn't you, Barry?"

"Yes," responded Barry. "I was going up there myself to have a reckoning with Phil; but Mary says, 'Don't go.'"

"I say the same thing to you, Steve," said the woman. "Don't go. I want the matter dropped. I don't want either of you to discuss it with another soul. If you do, the one that does it need never speak to me again."

She sat resolutely back in her chair, facing each man in turn, looking at them with eyes of authority.

"But," protested Lamar, "so far as I can understand, the whole town's talking about it."

"Indeed!" she replied; "and which of you two gentlemen do they say was with me on the bridge?"

"Why, they're not quite sure."

"Then we'll settle it here among ourselves. Was it you, Steve?"

"I'll swear it wasn't," emphatically.

"Good! Was it you, Barry?"

"No, Mrs. Bradley, on my soul it wasn't."

"There you are, gentlemen. Honors are even." She laughed and added: "Now you can shake hands and make up. The bridge incident is closed."

But Lamar sat staring at Barry incredulously. He had made up his mind that, since he had not been the