"Is it Clive?"

"Later--perhaps," answered Deede Dawson. "There's some one else
--first. Are you ready?"

"Try me," said Dunn for the third time, and as he spoke his quick
ear caught the faint sound of a retreating footstep, and he told
himself that Ella must have lingered near and had perhaps heard all
they said.

"Try me," he said once more, speaking more loudly and clearly this
time.



CHAPTER XIV

LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT


Dunn went to his room that night with the feeling that a crisis was
approaching. And he wished very greatly that he knew how much Ella
had overheard of his talk with her stepfather, and what
interpretation she had put upon it.

He determined that in the morning he would take the very first
opportunity he could find of speaking to her.

But in the morning it appeared that Mrs. Dawson had had a bad night,