"M. Leroux, why will you not believe that I remember nothing?" answered Jacqueline.

"How can you have forgotten? Why did you run away after marrying him?

What were you doing in New York? Who was the man who accompanied you to the Merrimac?" he shouted.

Through the chink of the door I saw the old man look up in mild protest at the disturbing sounds. I clenched my fists, and the temptation to make an end of Leroux was almost too strong for my restraint.

But to Jacqueline the insult conveyed no meaning, and Leroux continued in more moderate tones.

"Come, _madame_, why do you not play fair with me?" he asked. "Who is that man Hewlett, and why did he accompany you so far toward your _chateau_? Before God, I know your husband and he have been plotting with Tom Carson against me, but why he should thus place himself in my power I cannot understand."

"Ah, you have spoken of a Tom Carson many times," said Jacqueline.

"Soon, _monsieur_, I shall begin to believe that such a person really exists."

"Tell me where you met Hewlett."

"I tell you for the last time, _monsieur_, that I do not remember. But what I do remember I shall tell you. After my father had turned M.

Louis d'Epernay out of his home, whither he had come to beg money to pay his gambling debts, you brought him back. You made my father take him in. He wanted to marry me. But I refused, because I had no love for him. But you insisted I should marry him, because he had gained you the entrance to the seigniory and helped you to acquire your power over my father. Oh, yes, _monsieur_, let us be frank with each other, as you have expressed the desire to be."

"Go on," growled Leroux, biting his lips. "Perhaps I shall learn something."

"Nothing that you do not already know, _monsieur_," she flashed out with spirit. "My father came here, long ago, a political fugitive, in danger of death. You knew this, and you played upon his fears. You brought your friends and encouraged him to gamble and waste his money in his old age, when his mind had become enfeebled.

"Yes, you played on the old gambling instinct which had laid dormant in him for forty years. You made him think he was acting the _grand seigneur_, as his father had done in earlier days, in his other home at St. Boniface.

"You drained him of his last penny, and then you offered him ten thousand dollars to gamble with in Quebec, telling him of the delights of the city and promising him immunity," the girl went on remorselessly. "And for this he was to assign his property to Louis, thinking, of course, that he could soon make his fortune at the tables.

And Louis was to marry me, and in turn sell the seigniory to you. And so I married Louis under threat of death to my father.

"Oh, yes, _monsieur_, the plan was simple and well devised. And I knew nothing of it. But Louis d'Epernay blurted it all out to me upon our wedding night. I think the shame of knowing that I had been sold to him unhinged my mind, for I ran out into the snows.

"Now you know all, _monsieur_, for I remember nothing more until I found myself travelling back with M. Hewlett in the sleigh. You say I was in New York. Well, I do not remember it.

"And as for Louis d'Epernay, I know nothing of him--but I will die before he claims me as his wife!"

She had grown breathless as she proceeded with her scathing denunciation and now stood facing him with an aspect of fearless challenge on her face. And then I had the measure of Leroux. He laughed, and he beat down her scorn with scorn.

"You have underestimated your price, _madame_," he sneered. "Since you have learned so much, I will tell you more. You have cost me twenty thousand dollars, and not ten; for besides the ten thousand paid to your father, Louis got ten thousand also, upon the signing of the marriage contract. So swallow that, and be proud of being priced so high! And the seigniory is already his, and I am waiting for him to return and sell me the ground rights for twenty-five thousand more, and if I know Louis d'Epernay he will not wait very long to get his fingers round it."

Jacqueline stood watching him with supreme indifference.

The man's coarse gibes had flown past her without wounding her, as they would have hurt a lower nature.

"No doubt he will return," she answered quietly. "If he would take ten thousand for me, surely he will take twenty-five thousand for the seigniory. You have us in your power."

"Then why the devil doesn't he come?" roared Leroux. "If he is intriguing with Carson, by God, I know enough to shut him up in jail the rest of his life. And so, _madame_," he ended quietly, "it will perhaps be worth your while to tell me why Tom Carson sent this Hewlett back to the _chateau_; for no doubt the wolves have picked him pretty clean by now."

"Listen to me, Simon Leroux," said Jacqueline, standing up before him, as indomitable in spirit as he. "All your plots and schemes mean nothing to me. My only aim is to take my father away from here, from you and M. d'Epernay, and let you wrangle over your spoil. There are more than four-legged wolves, M. Leroux; there are human ones, and, like the others, when food is scarce they prey upon each other."

"I like your spirit!" exclaimed Simon, staring at her with frank admiration.

And Jacqueline's head drooped then. Unwittingly Simon had pierced her defences.

But he never knew, for before he had time to know the grey-beard rose upon his feet and rubbed his thin hands together, chuckling.

"Never mind your money, Simon," he said. "I'm going to be richer than any of you. Do you know what I did with that ten thousand? I gave it to my little daughter, and she has gone to New York to make our fortunes at Mr. Daly's gaming-house. No, there she is!" he suddenly exclaimed. "She has come back!"

Leroux wheeled round and looked from one to the other.

"So that was the purpose of your visit to New York?" he asked the girl.

"So--you have not quite forgotten that, _madame_! Your price was not too vile a thing for you to take it to New York with you! Your shame was not too great for you to remember that your father had ten thousand dollars!"

"It was not mine," she flashed back at Leroux. "My father would have lost it again to you. I took it to New York because I thought that I could make enough to give him a home during the rest of his days. Do you think I would have touched a penny of it, _monsieur_?"

"I don't know," answered Leroux. "But we will soon find out. Where is that money, _madame_?"

Jacqueline's lips quivered. I saw her glance involuntarily toward the door behind which I was standing.

And suddenly the last phase of the problem became clear to me.

Jacqueline thought I had robbed her.

I stepped from behind the door and faced Leroux. "I have that money,"

I said curtly.

I saw his face turn white. He staggered back, and then, with a bull's bellow, rushed at me, his heavy fists aloft. I think he could have beaten out my brains with them.

But he stopped short when he saw my automatic pistol pointing at his chest. And he saw in my face that I was ready to shoot to kill.

"You thief--you spy--you treacherous hound, I'll murder you!" he roared.

The dotard, who had been looking at me, came forward.

"No, no, I won't have him murdered, Simon," he protested, laying a trembling hand on Leroux's shoulder. "He has almost as good a roulette system as I have."

CHAPTER XV

WON--AND LOST

We must have stood confronting each other for fully a minute. Then Leroux dropped his hands and smiled sourly at me.

"You seem--temporarily--to have the advantage of me, M. Hewlett," he said. "I respect your pertinacity, and now at last I am content in having discovered the motive of your enterprise. I thought you were hired by Carson. If you had been frank with me we might have come to an understanding long ago.

"So, since you have managed to come thus far, and since I am a man of business, the best thing we can do is to talk over our difficulties and try to adjust them. You will recall that on the occasion of our meeting in New York I asked you what your price was. But of course you were not then prepared to answer me, since you had your price already.

Well, have you come here to get more?"

There was an indescribable insolence in his tone. In spite of the fact that I had him at my mercy, the man's force and courage almost made him my master then.