“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth. “Gambling is Mr. Ellison’s weakness. It has brought him into great trouble in the past, and I should not be surprised if his present trouble could be traced to it.” “Explain yourself,” said Ida, believing that she was now on the line of a new discovery. “Mr. Ellison’s weakness is a love of gambling, and, though his New York friends know little or nothing of that side of him, yet he used to go to Philadelphia frequently to play. There he gambled most heavily, with a certain poker set in that city, of whom this Lannigan was one. He is very heavily in debt to some of that party.” “Were you present when Mr. Ellison come in and saw these men?” “Yes.” “Did you overhear their conversation?” “Yes; I could not help it, situated as I was.” “Was Mr. Ellison made aware of the intention to rob the Sanborn house?” “No.” “What reason did they give for desiring to enter the house?” “Merely the wish to be present.” “Did they give no reason for it?” “No.” “Did Mr. Ellison refuse their request?” “Very promptly.” “And what then?” “They attempted to force him to consent by threatening that, if he did not, they would inform Mr. Sanborn of his gambling habit and his gambling debts.” “What did Mr. Ellison do?” “Mr. Ellison is a brave man. He told them that he would not be forced by anybody; that, if they wanted to do that, they could do so, but he would not consent to their being present at the wedding reception; and that they were presuming in attempting to lift a gambling acquaintance into a social relation.” “Then what did the men do?” “They went away, threatening.” “Do you think Mr. Ellison had a suspicion of their intentions?” “I don’t know.” “Now, Miss Rainforth, what was your purpose in going to Mr. Ellison’s apartments at such a strange hour?” Miss Rainforth turned a startled look on Ida, took a turn or two up and down the room, and came back. She said: “I was not alone. My brother was nearby. He knew of my going there.” “Even so,” said Ida, “it was a remarkable thing for a young woman to go to a young man’s apartment on the night before his wedding at nearly the midnight hour.” The young woman blazed up into a passion. “I went there in a last attempt to prevent his marriage.” “To prevent his marriage?” repeated Ida. “Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth. “By all rights, he was bound to me, and it was I whom he should have married.” “Do you mean to say that you were engaged?” “Yes; if promise is an engagement.” The young woman paused a moment and then said, passionately: “It was that wretch, that Ladew woman, who interfered. But he never loved her.” “Miss Rainforth,” said Ida, “I fear you have been laboring under a strange delusion. You evidently do not know that, almost from the moment of his arrival in New York, Mr. Ellison was a suitor for the hand of Miss Sanborn.” “It is not so,” said Miss Rainforth. “He was entangled by her family, pursued and hunted by Elsie Sanborn herself.”