“One minute,” replied Constance calmly.  “I am sure Mr. Warrington is a gentleman, if you are not.  Perhaps I have no finger prints to correspond with those on the bottle.  If not, I am sure that we can send for some one whose prints will do so.”

She was studying the bottle.

“The other, however,” she said slowly to conceal her own surprise, “was a person who has been set to trail you and Stella, Mr. Warrington, a detective named Drummond!”

Suddenly the truth flashed over her.  Drummond was not employed by Mrs. Warrington at all.  Then by whom?  By the directors.  And the rest of these people?  Grafters who were using Stella to bait the hook.  Braden had gone over to them, had aided in plunging Warrington into the wild life until he could no longer play the business game as before.  Charmant was his confederate, Drummond his witness.

“Stella,” said Constance, turning suddenly to the little actress, “Stella, they are using you, ‘Diamond Jack’ and Vera, using you to lead him on, playing the game of the minority of the directors of the Syndicate to get him out.  There is to be a meeting of the directors to-night at the Prince Henry.  He was to be in no condition to go.  Are you willing to be mixed up in such a scandal?”

Stella Larue was crying into a lace handkerchief.  “You—­you are all —­against me,” she sobbed.  “What have I done?”

“Nothing,” soothed Constance, patting her shoulder.  “As for Charmant and Drummond, they are tied by these proofs,” she added, tapping the papers with the prints, then picking them up and handing them to Warrington.  “I think if the story were told to the directors at the Prince Henry to-night with reporters waiting downstairs in the lobby, it might produce a quieting effect.”

Warrington was speechless.  He saw them all against him, Vera, Braden, Stella, Drummond.

“More than that,” added Constance, “nothing that you can ever do can equal the patience, the faith of the little woman I saw here to-day, slaving, yes, slaving for beauty.  Here in my hand, in these scraps of paper, I hold your old life,—­not part of it, but all of it,” she emphasized.  “You have your chance.  Will you take it?”

He looked up quickly at Stella Larue.  She had risen impulsively and flung her arms about Constance.

“Yes,” he muttered huskily, taking the papers, “all of it.”

CHAPTER VIII

THE ABDUCTORS

“Take care of me—­please—­please!”

A slip of a girl, smartly attired in a fur-trimmed dress and a chic little feather-tipped hat, hurried up to Constance Dunlap late one afternoon as she turned the corner below her apartment.

“It isn’t faintness or illness exactly—­but—­it’s all so hazy,” stammered the girl breathlessly.  “And I’ve forgotten who I am.  I’ve forgotten where I live—­and a man has been following me—­oh, ever so long.”