Quickly, please!"

"I was in the drawing-room talking to Mr. Littleson," Virginia said,
"when I heard the small alarm bell that I had had fitted on to the
library door ring. I came in and found Stella here. She locked me in.
She is very strong. I had no idea that she was so strong," Virginia
murmured, half closing her eyes and fainting away.

He hurried to her side, and forced some more brandy between her lips.
Then he laid her flat on the floor, and began to walk up and down.

"So this is Stella's work," he muttered to himself. "That accounts for
the message I had yesterday, that she was seen driving with Littleson.
What she did for that blackguard Vine, she has done for them!"

His face, no longer an amiable one, grew sterner as he walked backwards
and forwards, his hands behind him, his eyes fixed upon the carpet. He
had staked a good deal on his possession of this hold upon the men who
had been his associates. The whole situation had to be readjusted in the
altered light of events. The first impulse of the man, to act, seemed
strangled almost at its birth by the absolute futility of any move he
could possibly make. He had no idea where to find his daughter, with
whom she was living, or how. Any publicity of any sort was of course out
of the question. No wonder that his frown grew heavier as he realized
more completely the helplessness of his position. He was a man
unaccustomed to failure, whose career through life had been one smooth
road of success and triumph. His touch seemed to have transformed the
very dust heaps into gold, and the barren wastes into prosperous cities.
The shadow of failure had never fallen across his path. Now that it had
come he was bewildered. An ordinary reverse he could have met resolutely
enough. This was something stupendous, something against which the
ordinary weapons of his will were altogether powerless. Try as he might,
he could not see his way ahead. He was too deeply involved for any one
to gauge the position accurately. A knock at the door. Phineas Duge
looked up, and paused for a moment in his restless walk. He opened it
cautiously and let in young Smedley, a tall, broad-shouldered young man.

"Come in, Smedley," he said shortly. "I have been wanting you."

The young man looked straight across at Virginia, still stretched upon
the floor, and he took a quick step in her direction.

"What did you find was the matter with Miss Longworth, sir?" he asked.
"Is she ill?"

Duge