perplexed--and
also a little alarmed. Everything which I did not understand frightened
me in those days." She spoke as if "those days" and all their dark events
belonged to some dim period of which no consequence could reach her now.
"Our departure had almost the look of a flight."

"Yes," said Chayne. For his part he was not surprised at their flight. He
had passed more than one wakeful night during the last few months arguing
and arguing again whether or no he should have disclosed to Sylvia the
meaning of that softly opening door and the shadow on the ceiling as he
read it. He might have been wrong; if so, he would have added to Sylvia's
burden of troubles yet another, and one more terrible than all the rest.
He might have been right; and if so, he might have enabled Sylvia to
avert a tragedy. Thus the argument had revolved in a circle and left him
always in the same doubt. Now he understood that his explanation of the
incident had been confirmed. The loud whistle from the darkness of the
road, the yokel's cry, which had driven Garratt Skinner from the room, as
noiselessly as he had entered it, had done more than that--they had
driven him from the neighborhood altogether. Some one had seen him--had
seen him standing just behind Walter Hine in the lighted room--and on the
next day he had fled!

"I was right," he said, absently, "right to keep silent." For here was
Sylvia at his side and the dreaded peril unfulfilled. "Well, you returned
to London?" he added, hastily.

"Yes. There is something of which I did not tell you, that night when we
were together on the downs. Walter Hine had begun to take cocaine."

Chayne started.

"Cocaine!" he cried.

"Yes. My father taught him to take it."

"Your father," said Chayne, slowly, trying to fit this new and astounding
fact in with the rest. "But why?"

"I think I can tell you," said Sylvia. "My father knew quite well that he
had me working against him, trying to rescue Walter Hine out of his
hands. And I was beginning to get some power. He understood that, and
destroyed it. I was no match for him. I thought that I knew something of
the under side of life. But he knew more, ever so much more, and my
knowledge was of no avail. He taught Walter Hine the craving for cocaine,
and he satisfied the craving--there was his power. He provided the drug.
I do not know--I might perhaps have fought against my father and won. But
against my father and a drug I was helpless. My father