"It was red-eye that got me into this, I reckon, and I'll let the stuff alone hereafter. I've promised to, and I will, no matter what comes.

That's whatever!"

And when Buck Badger put his foot down he usually put it down hard.

"I'd feel better if I could only meet Don Pike and swell up his eyes for him," he continued to growl. "But the coward has sloped."

It did, indeed, seem that Pike was making an effort to keep out of the way of the Westerner. The very sight of the Lee home quickened Badger's heart-beats. He felt that he would give anything to know if Winnie was in the house, or had been spirited away.

"Like enough, her father has locked her in her room! But there ain't any keys whatever that are made strong enough to keep me from seeing her.

I'll do it sooner or later."

Fortune favored the Westerner--fortune and his sweetheart, Winnie Lee.

Winnie was as wildly anxious to see Buck as he was to see her. She had been locked in her room for stubbornness in refusing to promise never to see Badger again, and the other girls had been told that she was ill and could not be seen. They knew better now, for Winnie had finally bribed and coaxed one of the servants to tell them the truth. They had not known it long, but long enough for Inza--indignant as she was brave, and brave as she was indignant--to send to Winnie a note, signed by herself and Elsie, a.s.suring the unhappy girl of their sympathy and firm friendship. And that note was wrapped round a door-key which fitted Winnie's door, which the servant was bribed to carry.

So it came about that shortly after nightfall Winnie let herself out of her room, and creeping down some familiar halls and stairways, emerged into the grounds surrounding the house. Then she turned toward the street. She did not know what she meant to do, only she had a feeling that Buck was somewhere in the vicinity trying to find an opportunity to speak to her. She had felt sure that he would not abandon the attempt to communicate with her. She had on her jacket, with a scarf thrown over her head. She felt that she would not be easily recognized.

She stopped as she drew near the corner which gave a view down the street. There was a stir beyond the wall. The next instant a form came flying over the fence.

"Winnie!"

"Buck!"

It was Badger!

"I have been crazy to see you!" he whispered, clasping her tightly in his arms. "I knew it wasn't your fault that I did not get to see you.

Have they had you locked up?"

"Yes," she answered, fervently returning the kiss. "I just got out of the room. Somehow, I felt that you were down here, and I slipped down as soon as I could."

"I knew you were true as steel," he fervently declared. "Nothing whatever could ever have made me believe otherwise."

"Did father write to you?"

"Yes. He told me never to come here again, and that I must not try to see you. I came to the house, and the servant said you were not in, and would not admit me even when I asked for Elsie and Inza. I have had an awful time."

"I have nearly died!" she confessed. "Oh, it has simply been terrible! I thought once I was going crazy. Father does not understand how he has tortured me, or he would not do it, I know. He cannot realize what it means. He simply thinks I am still a child, and that I ought to submit to him in this matter, as I have always done in all other things."

"You are old enough now to have a mind of your own, I allow!"

"And he has heard such awful stories about you, Buck. Just terrible things."

That deep rage against Donald Pike struggled again in the heart of the Kansan.

"I think I know who told him. What were the things, anyway?"

He said this with a great dread, for he already knew.

"Oh, I knew you were not guilty, Buck! Never fancy for a moment that I thought you guilty. I told him you were innocent. I knew that it couldn't be true that you were"--she sobbed--"drunk when you went aboard the _Crested Foam_."

Badger winced as if stabbed. The dying boat-keeper, Barney Lynn, confessed to drugging Badger, but did not tell Winnie that Badger was drunk at the time. The Westerner knew this, and had been, as he had admitted to Merriwell, just coward enough to be glad that Lynn did not tell Winnie the whole truth. Now, as the sweat of a great inward struggle came out on his face, he wished he had been courageous enough to inform her of the real facts, instead of sheltering himself behind that palatial confession of the boat-keeper. It was a virtual falsehood that was coming home to him in a most unpleasant manner.

"I have stood up for you, Buck, against everything that father could say," Winnie artlessly and innocently continued. "When he insisted that you were drunk at the time, I told him I knew it was not so; and I have stood by it. He thinks he has discovered proofs from a saloon-keeper named Connelly, who keeps a vile resort somewhere down in the worst part of New Haven. Connelly says you were intoxicated at his house that night. But I told father that the same fellow who gave him the information against you in the first place must have hired Connelly to say that. A man who will sell liquor will lie, you know, Buck!"

Badger was violently trembling, but Winnie, in the ecstatic joy of meeting him, did not notice it. There was a tempest in the Kansan's soul. Winnie's sweet and trusting faith in him filled him with an anguishing shame. Could he tell her now that he was drunk that night--that all the things said against him by Connelly and that unknown informant were true? Would she not turn against him if he did? Would she not despise him? Would not her love be obliterated? Badger felt as if the ground were reeling under his feet.

Once he was about to give away to the evil impulses that were fighting against him. But he did not. At last, as she chattered on, so strongly a.s.serting her faith in his innocence, he caught her convulsively to him.

"Winnie!" he gasped, and his voice was so hoa.r.s.e and unnatural that she was startled. "My G.o.d! Winnie, don't say those things! I know that when I confess the truth to you you will feel that I am the biggest scoundrel that ever walked. But I must tell you. I was a coward and a fool, I reckon, for not telling you before. But I just couldn't, Winnie! But those things are true! I was drunk that night--I was at Connelly's--I was----"

Her form seemed to grow rigid in his arms.

"I must tell you the truth now, if it kills me!" he continued, almost gasping out the words. "And if you cast me off, I believe it will kill me! But it seems to me that I'd rather die than to have you think me innocent when I am guilty. I could never stand it in the world. I'm a dog, I allow! I'm not fit to a.s.sociate with you whatever--not in the least! Your father is right about that. I see it now, though I didn't before. But, Winnie, I love you, and I love you! That is all I can say.

I allow I haven't a right to say that now, but I must say it. You won't cast me off for this? You will give me another show? Before G.o.d, I haven't touched the stuff since that night! Not a drop! And I'll never touch it again!"

"Buck," she whispered, at last, "I wish you had told me that at the very first."

"And you wouldn't have spoken to me again?"

"Yes, Buck, I should have spoken to you again. I should have been very sorry, Buck. I should have grieved over it, as I do now. But I should have loved you just the same, Buck."

"Then you do love me? You do not intend to tell me to go and never speak to you again?"

"Don't you understand a girl's heart any better than that, Buck? She never casts a man off for such things, if she truly loves him--though, perhaps, she ought to! Love isn't a thing of the head, but of the heart.

I love you, Buck, and I am very sorry!"

He held her as if he meant never to let her go, and she submitted to his crushing caress.

"You are true--true--true as steel!" he exultantly cried.

"Be careful, or you will be heard, dear! We are right by the house, remember."

"Is your father in?"

"No, but he may return at any time. It would be terrible if he should discover us here."

"What are we to do?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't had time to think. What you have confessed has so upset me that I seem to know nothing else. I can't think of anything else. You see, Buck, I can't tell father any more that you were not--drunk that night!"

The hated word seemed to choke her.

"No!"

"And what shall I say to him?"

"I reckon that is entirely too much for me."

"But I will stand up for you all I can!"