intimate friend
of Margaret's father, a barrister half his life, and as keen as a
hawk, said that Mr. Van Torp was a very decent sort of man, and he
evidently allowed his daughter to like the American. It was true that
a scandalous tale about Lady Maud and the millionaire was already
going from mouth to mouth, but Margaret did not believe it. If she
had known that the facts were accurately told, whatever their meaning
might be, she would have taken them for further evidence against the
accused. As for Miss More, she was guided by her duty to her employer,
or her affection for little Ida, and she seemed to be of the
charitable sort, who think no evil; but after what Lord Creedmore had
said, Margaret had no doubt but that it was Mr. Van Torp who provided
for the child, and if she was his daughter, the reason for Senator
Moon's neglect of her was patent.

Then Margaret thought of Isidore Bamberger, the hard-working man of
business who was Van Torp's right hand and figure-head, as Griggs had
said, and who had divorced the beautiful, half-crazy mother of the two
Idas because Van Torp had stolen her from him--Van Torp, his partner,
and once his trusted friend. She remembered the other things Griggs
had told her: how old Bamberger must surely have discovered that his
daughter had been murdered, and that he meant to keep it a secret till
he caught the murderer. Even now the detectives might be on the right
scent, and if he whose child had been killed, and whose wife had been
stolen from him by the man he had once trusted, learnt the whole truth
at last, he would not be easily appeased.

'You have had some singular offers of marriage,' said Logotheti in a
tone of reflection. 'You will probably marry a beggar some day--a
nice beggar, who has ruined himself like a gentleman, but a beggar
nevertheless!'

'I don't know,' Margaret said carelessly. 'Of one thing I am sure. I
shall not marry Mr. Van Torp.'

Logotheti laughed softly.

'Remember the French proverb,' he said. '"Say not to the fountain, I
will not drink of thy water."'

'Proverbs,' returned Margaret, 'are what Schreiermeyer calls stupid
stuff. Fancy marrying that monster!'

'Yes,' assented Logotheti, 'fancy!'

CHAPTER IX

Three weeks later, when the days were lengthening quickly and London
was beginning to show its better side to the cross-grained people who
abuse its climate, the gas was lighted again in the dingy rooms in
Hare Court. No one but the o