there something about Severac Bablon in the paper?" she asked
interestedly. "_I_ can't find anything."

"Nope?" drawled Oppner. "Nope? H'm! Then what about all this front page,
with Julius Rohscheimer sitting in his _pie_-jams and the Marquess of
Evershed talking at him? Ain't that Severac Bablon? Sure! Did you think
that Julius found it good for his health to part up a cool hundred
thou.? And look at Hague up in the corner--and Elschild in the other
corner! There's only one way to open the cheque-books of either of them
guys; with a gun!"

"Oh!" cried Zoe--"how exciting!"

"I'm with you," drawled her father. "It's as thrilling as having all
your front teeth out."

"Do you mean, Pa, that this is something to do with the card----"

"There's me and Jesson to shell out yet. That's what I mean! He's raised
two hundred thousand. I'm richer'n any of 'em and he'll mulct me on my
Canadian investments for the balance of half a million! Or maybe he'll
split it between me and Jesson and Hohsmann!"

"Oh!" said Zoe, "what a pity! And I was going to ask you to buy me two
new hats!"

Her father looked at her long and earnestly.

"You haven't got any proper kind of balance where money is concerned,
Zoe," he drawled. "Your brain pod ain't burstin' with financial genius.
You don't seem to care worth a baked bean that I'm bein' fleeced of
thousands! That hog Bablon cleaned me out a level million dollars when
he burned the Runek Mills, and now I know, plain as if I saw him, he's
got me booked for another pile! Where d'you suppose money comes from?
D'you think I can grab out like a coin manipulator, and my hand comes
back full of dollars?"

Zoe made no reply. She was staring, absently, over her father's head,
into a dream-world. Had Mr. Oppner been endowed with the power to read
from another's eyes, he would have found a startling story written in
the beautiful book fringed by Zoe's dark lashes. She was thinking of
Severac Bablon; thinking of him, not as a felon, but as he had been
depicted to her by the strange man whom she had met at Lord
Vignoles'--the man who pursued him, yet condoned his sins.

Her father's sandy voice broke in upon her reverie:

"Where I'm tied up--same with Rohscheimer and the rest--I don't know
this thief Bablon when I see him."

"No," said Zoe. "Of course."

Mr. Oppner stared. His daughter's attitude was oddly unemotional, wholly
detached and impersonal.

"H'm!" he grunted dryly. "I've got to see