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 that confessed her total exasperation. "He has humiliated me so. That chamber of commerce meeting was one long"

"That meeting was a job," scowled Lahleet, letting herself go a little; "a nasty trick to turn people against him. Madden and Clayton had votes enough to pass the McKenzie's Tongue bill. They are passing it right now while we are sitting here."

"But that's what makes it all so stupid." Billie was almost weeping. "Nobody can fight father. He is always right and he will always do what he wants to do. Everything was going on so nicely—father just loved Henry and we were going to be married in October, and take a trip around the world, and everything—and now this horrid mess!"

"But you don't think Henry Harrington killed that man?" Lahleet's voice was full now of a sense of outrage.

"Father does." Billie wept now quite frankly, overcome by her griefs and perplexities yet not committing herself to the murder theory. "He says Mr. Harrington has always been a very terrible person when he was roused. They called him Hellfire in the army, you know. Besides he makes such a mystery of it," she complained. "If he would only tell frankly all the details! If he would write to me about it even!"

"She doesn't believe it herself," Lahleet discerned shrewdly; "not for a moment she doesn't; but she's jealous because he didn't tell sweetheart all about it."

And then Miss Marceau took up the cudgels for Henry, tactfully she hoped, with: "But Mr. Harrington is a man of such high honor that there must be some reason for his being secretive—some honorable reason.