“But violence was not the only change in Walter Hine.  There were some physical alterations which frightened me.  Mr. Hine, as I say, came very seldom to our house, though my father saw a great deal of him.  Otherwise I should have noticed them before.  But early this year he came and—­you remember he was fair—­well, his skin had grown dark, quite dark, his complexion had changed altogether.  And there was something else which shocked me.  His tongue was black, really black.  I asked him what was the matter?  He grew restless and angry and lied to me, and then he broke down and told me he could not sleep.  He slept for a few minutes only at a time.  He really was ill—­very ill.”

Was this the explanation, Chayne asked himself?  Having failed at the quick process, the process of the lighted room and the open window, had Garratt Skinner left the drug to do its work slowly and surely?

“He was so weak, so broken in appearance, that I was alarmed.  My father was not in the house.  I sent for a cab and I took Mr. Hine myself to a doctor.  The doctor knew at once what was amiss.  For a time Mr. Hine said ‘No,’ but he gave in at the last.  He was in the habit of taking thirty grains of cocaine a day.”

“Thirty grains!” exclaimed Chayne.

“Yes.  Of course it could not go on.  Death or insanity would surely follow.  He was warned of it, and for a while he went into a home.  Then he got better, and he determined to go abroad and travel.”

“Who suggested that?” asked Chayne.

“I do not know.  I know only that he refused to go without my father, and that my father consented to accompany him.”

Chayne was startled.

“They are away together now?” he cried.  A look of horror in his eyes betrayed his fear.  He stared at Sylvia.  Had she no suspicion—­she who knew something of the under side of life?  But she quietly returned his look.

“I took precautions.  I told my father what I knew—­not merely that Mr. Hine had acquired the habit of taking cocaine, but who had taught him the habit.  Yes, I did that,” she said simply, answering his look of astonishment.  “It was difficult, my dear, and I would very much have liked to have had you there to help me through with it.  But since you were not there, since I was alone, I did it alone.  I thought of you, Hilary, while I was saying what I had to say.  I tried to hear your voice speaking again outside the Chalet de Lognan.  ’What you know, that you must do.’  I warned my father that if any harm came to Walter Hine from taking the drug again, any harm at all which I traced to my father, I would not keep silent.”

Chayne leaned back in his seat.

“You said that—­to Garratt Skinner, Sylvia!” and the warmth of pride and admiration in his voice brought the color to her cheeks and compensated her for that bad hour.  “You stood up alone and braved him out!  My dear, if I had only been there!  And you never wrote to me a word of it!”