"You suspect someone?" she asked, in a low, harsh voice. "Well," he answered, regarding his unlit cigarette intently, "I will not say that I actually suspect someone, but I have a theory, strange though it may be, which I believe will turn out to be the correct one." Liane started. Father and daughter again exchanged quick glances. She fancied she saw suspicion in his eyes. "May I not assist you?" she asked. "You know that in the past I've many times brought you luck at the tables." "No," he said, shaking his head. "In this I must act entirely alone. George Stratfield no doubt occupies all your thoughts." She thought she detected a touch of sarcasm in his tone. The girl blushed deeply, but did not answer. Her father, inveterate smoker that he was, lit his cigarette and sat silent and self-absorbed for a long time. He was thinking of the bright happy girl who, cold and dead in her tiny room upstairs, was the victim of a foul, terrible, and mysterious crime. "How long have you known this man?" the Captain inquired at last. "Three months." "And has he proposed to you?" "He has," she faltered, blushing more deeply. He drew a long breath, rose slowly, and pulling aside the white blind, looked out as if in search of something. In truth, he was hesitating whether he should speak to her at once, or wait for some other opportunity. Turning to her at last, however, he said briefly, in a low, pained tone,-- "You must break off the engagement, Liane. You cannot marry him." "Cannot!" she gasped, her face turning pale. "Why?" "Listen," he continued huskily, coming closer to her, laying his big hand upon her shoulder, and looking down upon her tenderly. "Through all these years of prosperity and adversity you alone have been the one bright joy of my life. Your existence has kept me from going to the bad altogether; your influence has prevented me from sinking lower in degradation than I have already sunk. For me the facile pleasures of a stray man have ceased, because, for your sake, Liane, I gave up the old life and returned here to settle and become respectable. I admit that our life in England is a trifle tame after what we've been used to, but it will not, perhaps, be always so. At present my luck's against me and we must wait in patience; therefore do not accept the first man's offer of marriage. Life's merely a game of _rouge-et-noir_. Sometimes you may win by waiting. Reflect well upon all the chances before you stake the maximum." "But George loves me, dad, and his family are wealthy," she protested, meeting her father's earnest gaze with her large grey eyes, in which stood unshed tears.