trap he had laid for himself--and she smiled trustfully at him, drawing
a deep sigh of satisfaction and laying her head against his shoulder.

"That can't be," she repeated. "No man could deceive a woman like
that!"

Sanderson groaned, mentally. He couldn't confess now and at the same
time entertain any hope that she would forgive him.

Nor could he--knowing what he knew now of Dale's plans--brutally tell
her the truth and leave her to fight Dale single-handed,

And there was still another consideration to deter him from making a
confession. By impersonating her brother he had raised her hopes high.
How could he tell her that her brother had been killed, that he had
buried him in a desolate section of a far-off desert after taking his
papers and his money?

He felt, from her manner when he had tentatively asked her to consider
the possibility of his not being her brother, that the truth would kill
her, as she had said.

Worse, were he now to inform her of what had happened in the desert,
she might not believe him; she might indeed--considering that he
already had dealt doubly with her--accuse him of being her brother's
murderer!

Again Sanderson groaned in spirit. To confess to her would be to
destroy her; to withhold the confession and to continue to impersonate
her brother was to act the rôle of a cad.