"He was so weak, so broken in appearance, that I was alarmed. My father was not in the house. I sent for a cab and I took Mr. Hine myself to a doctor. The doctor knew at once what was amiss. For a time Mr. Hine said 'No,' but he gave in at the last. He was in the habit of taking thirty grains of cocaine a day."

"Thirty grains!" exclaimed Chayne.

"Yes. Of course it could not go on. Death or insanity would surely follow. He was warned of it, and for a while he went into a home. Then he got better, and he determined to go abroad and travel."

"Who suggested that?" asked Chayne.

"I do not know. I know only that he refused to go without my father, and that my father consented to accompany him."

Chayne was startled.

"They are away together now?" he cried. A look of horror in his eyes betrayed his fear. He stared at Sylvia. Had she no suspicion--she who knew something of the under side of life? But she quietly returned his look.

"I took precautions. I told my father what I knew--not merely that Mr.

Hine had acquired the habit of taking cocaine, but who had taught him the habit. Yes, I did that," she said simply, answering his look of astonishment. "It was difficult, my dear, and I would very much have liked to have had you there to help me through with it. But since you were not there, since I was alone, I did it alone. I thought of you, Hilary, while I was saying what I had to say. I tried to hear your voice speaking again outside the Chalet de Lognan. 'What you know, that you must do.' I warned my father that if any harm came to Walter Hine from taking the drug again, any harm at all which I traced to my father, I would not keep silent."

Chayne leaned back in his seat.

"You said that--to Garratt Skinner, Sylvia!" and the warmth of pride and admiration in his voice brought the color to her cheeks and compensated her for that bad hour. "You stood up alone and braved him out! My dear, if I had only been there! And you never wrote to me a word of it!"

"It would only have troubled you," she answered. "It would not have helped me to know that you were troubled!"

"And he--your father?" he asked. "How did he receive it?"

Sylvia's face grew pale, and she stared at the table-cloth as though she could not for the moment trust her voice. Then she shuddered and said in a low and shaking voice--so vivid was still the memory of that hour:

"I thought that I should never see you again."

She said no more. From those few words, and from the manner in which she uttered them, Chayne had to build up the terrible scene which had taken place between Sylvia and her father in the little back room of the house in Hobart Place. He looked round the lighted room, listened to the ripple of light voices, and watched the play of lively faces and bright eyes.

There was an incongruity between these surroundings and the words which he had heard which shocked him.

"My dear, I'll make it up to you," he said. "Trust me, I will! There shall be good hours, now. I'll watch you, till I know surely without a word from you what you are thinking and feeling and wanting. Trust me, dearest!"

"With all my heart and the rest of my life," she answered, a smile responding to his words, and she resumed her story:

"I extracted from my father a promise that every week he should write to me and tell me how Mr. Hine was and where they both were. And to that--at last--he consented. They have been away together for two months, and every week I have heard. So I think there is no danger."

Chayne did not disagree. But, on the other hand, he did not a.s.sent.

"I suppose Mr. Hine is very rich?" he said, doubtfully.

"No," replied Sylvia. "That's another reason why--I am not afraid." She chose the words rather carefully, unwilling to express a deliberate charge against her father. "I used to think that he was--in the beginning when Captain Barstow won so much from him. But when the bets ceased and no more cards were played--I used to puzzle over why they ceased last year. But I think I have hit upon the explanation. My father discovered then what I only found out a few weeks ago. I wrote to Mr. Hine's grandfather, telling him that his grandson was ill, and asking him whether he would not send for him. I thought that would be the best plan."

"Yes, well?"

"Well, the grandfather answered me very shortly that he did not know his grandson, that he did not wish to know him, and that they had nothing to do with one another in any way. It was a churlish letter. He seemed to think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine," and she laughed as she spoke, "and that I was trying to find out what we should have to live upon. I suppose that it was natural he should think so. And I am so glad that I wrote. For he told me that although Mr. Hine must eventually have a fortune, it would not be until he himself died and that he was a very healthy man. So you see, there could be no advantage to any one--" and she did not finish the sentence.

But Chayne could finish it for himself. There could be no advantage to any one if Walter Hine died. But then why the cocaine? Why the incident of the lighted window?

"Yes," he said, in perplexity, "I can corroborate that. It happened that my friend John Lattery, who was killed in Switzerland, was also connected with Joseph Hine. He also would have inherited; and I knew from him that the old man did not recognize his heirs. But--but Walter Hine had money--some money, at all events. And he earned none. From whom did he get it?"

Sylvia shook her head.

"I do not know."

"Had he no other relations, no friends?"

"None who would have made him an allowance."

Chayne pondered over that question. For in the answer to it he was convinced he would find the explanation of the mystery. If money was given to Walter Hine, who had apparently no rich relations but his grandfather, and certainly no rich friends, it would have been given with some object. To discover the giver and his object--that was the problem.

"Think! Did he never speak of any one?"

Sylvia searched her memories.

"No," she said. "He never spoke of his private affairs. He always led us to understand that he drew an allowance from his grandfather."

"But your father found that that was untrue when you were in Dorsetshire, ten months ago. For the card-playing and the bets ceased."

"Yes," Sylvia agreed thoughtfully. Then her face brightened. "I remember a morning when Mr. Hine was in trouble. Wait a moment! He had a letter. We were at breakfast and the letter came from Captain Barstow. There was some phrase in the letter which Mr. Hine repeated.

'As between gentlemen'--that was it! I remember thinking at the time what in the world Captain Barstow could know about gentlemen; and wondering why the phrase should trouble Mr. Hine. And that morning Mr.

Hine went to London."

"Oh, did he?" cried Chayne. "'As between gentlemen.' Had Hine been losing money lately to Captain Barstow?"

"Yes, on the day when you first came."

"The starlings," exclaimed Chayne in some excitement. "That's it--Walter Hine owes money to Captain Barstow which he can't pay. Barstow writes for it--a debt of honor between gentlemen--one can imagine the letter. Hine goes up to London. Well, what then?"

Sylvia started.

"My father went to London two days afterward."

"Are you sure?"

It seemed to Chayne that they were getting hot in their search.

"Quite sure. For I remember that after his return his manner changed.

What I thought to be the new plot was begun. The cards disappeared, the bets ceased, Mr. Parminter was brought down with the cocaine. I remember it all clearly. For I always a.s.sociated the change with my father's journey to London. You came one evening--do you remember? You found me alone and afraid. My father and Walter Hine were walking arm-in-arm in the garden. That was afterward."

"Yes, you were afraid because there was no sincerity in that friendship.

Now let me get this right!"

He remained silent for a little while, placing the events in their due order and interpreting them, one by the other.

"This is what I make of it," he said at length. "The man in London who supplies Walter Hine with money finds that Walter Hine is spending too much. He therefore puts himself into communication with Garratt Skinner, of whom he has doubtless heard from Walter Hine. Garratt Skinner travels to London, has an interview, and a concerted plan of action is agreed upon, which Garratt Skinner proceeds to put in action."

He spoke so gravely that Sylvia turned anxiously toward him.