STEVE HOYLE was confined to his room with a bullet hole through the flesh of his right arm the day following the meeting at Inwood. He wrote Stella a letter informing her that John Graharr had hired a gang of thugs to attempt his assassination on the night he was to meet her, that he had been desperately wounded in her service, and begged that she call at once.
Stella sent him a reply that cut deeper than the bullet from John's revolver. It was very brief. Steve read it with muttered curses:
Steve paced his room in a speechless rage for an hour, dressed to call on her and demand an interview, and suddenly changed his mind at the sight of a squad of troops hurrying past his door.
The arrest of John Graham had brought him to the verge of collapse. He trembled at the
