ning your young life as Predeaux ruined your
mother's. That was thoughtful of him. Now I don't intend ruining your
life, I intend leaving you with half your uncle's fortune and the
capacity for enjoying all that life can hold for a high-spirited young
woman."

"I'll not do it, I'll not do it, I'll not do it," she muttered.

He rose from the chair and bent over her.

"My young friend, you are going to sleep," he said to himself, waited a
little longer and left the room, closing the door behind him.

He descended to the hall and passed into the big dining-hall beneath the
girl's bedroom. The room had two occupants, a stout, hairless man who
had neither hair, eyebrows, nor vestige of beard, and a younger man.

"Hello, Bridgers," said van Heerden addressing the latter, "you've been
talking."

"Well, who doesn't?" snarled the man.

He pulled the tortoiseshell box from his pocket, opened the lid and took
a pinch from its contents, snuffling the powder luxuriously.

"That stuff will kill you one of these days," said van Heerden.

"It will make him better-tempered," growled the hairless man. "I don't
mind people who take cocaine as long as they are taking it. It's between
dopes that they get on my nerves."

"Dr. Milsom speaks like a Christian and an artist," said Bridgers, with
sudden cheerfulness. "If I didn't dope, van Heerden, I should not be
working in your beastly factory, but would probably be one of the
leading analytical chemists in America. But I'll go back to do my
chore," he said rising. "I suppose I get a little commission for
restoring your palpitating bride? Milsom tells me that it is she. I
thought it was the other dame--the Dutch girl. I guess I was a bit
dopey."

Van Heerden frowned.

"You take too keen an interest in my affairs," he said.

"Aw! You're getting touchy. If I didn't get interested in something I'd
go mad," chuckled Bridgers.

He had reached that stage of cocaine intoxication when the world was a
very pleasant place indeed and full of subject for jocularity.

"This place is getting right on my nerves," he went on, "couldn't I go
to London? I'm stagnating here. Why, some of the stuff I cultivated the
other day wouldn't react. Isn't that so, Milsom? I get so dull in this
hole that all bugs look alike to me."

Van Heerden glanced at the man who was addressed as Dr. Milsom and the
latter nodded.

"Let him go back," he said, "I'll look after him. How's the lady?" asked
Milsom when