“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 obtained it in sufficient quantity, withheld it at times, gave it at other times, played with him, tantalized him, gratified him.  You can understand there was only one possible result.  Walter Hine became my father’s slave, his dog.  I no longer counted in his thoughts at all.  I was nothing.”

“Yes,” said Chayne.

The device was subtle, diabolically subtle.  But he wondered whether it was only to counterbalance and destroy Sylvia’s influence that Garratt Skinner had introduced cocaine to Hine’s notice; whether he had not had in view some other end, even still more sinister.

“I saw very little of Mr. Hine after our return to London,” she continued.  “He did not come often to the house, but when he did come, each time I saw that he had changed.  He had grown nervous and violent of temper.  Even before we left Dorsetshire the violence had become noticeable.”

“Oh!” said Chayne, looking quickly at Sylvia.  “Before you left Dorsetshire?”

“Yes; and my father seemed to me to provoke it, though I could not guess why.  For instance—­”

“Yes?” said Chayne.  “Tell me!”

He spoke quietly enough, but once again there was audible a certain intensity in his voice.  There had been an occasion when Sylvia had given to him more news of Garratt Skinner than she had herself.  Was she to do so once more?  He leaned forward with his eyes on hers.

“The night when you came back to me.  Do you remember, Hilary?” and a smile lightened his face.

“I shall forget no moment of that night, sweetheart, while I live,” he whispered; and blushes swept prettily over her face, and in a sweet confusion she smiled back at him.

“Oh, Hilary!” she said.

“Oh, Sylvia!” he mimicked; and as they laughed together, it seemed there was a danger that the story of the months of separation would never be completed.  But Chayne brought her back to it.