Dr. Barnhelm did not hesitate. He threw the delicate wooden box to the floor and dashed his foot down on it. It splintered to pieces. "There! Look! All of you!" He pointed to a string of amber, a silver pin, and-- "Look!" John stooped and held up before them the string of flashing diamonds. "Lola!" There was agony in the Doctor's voice. "Lola!" "It--it is not mine." "It is the box you dropped in here, after you came back from Dick Fenway. You would not let me see what was in it." John held up the battered leather box. "See how well it fits these diamonds!" "Then you did open that safe since the Doctor put the money there!" exclaimed Maria. "I knew you did. You took that money." "Well, what if I did?" She was at bay now, against them all, and she was glad of it. "I wanted the money. Could I have asked any of you for it? You are all so good, and so respectable that if I told you I wanted a pair of decent gloves you'd say it was a sin." She put out her hand and tore the string of diamonds away from John, and clasped them defiantly about her neck. "This is mine, and the man who gave it to me will give me as many others as I ask of him." "Lola!" John cried out in horror, but she turned on him fiercely, scornfully. "Why not? What have you to offer me to compare with what he can give me? Am I to go on forever, and ever, and ever, living the same life, thinking the same thoughts--always--always--until I die? If that was to be my life, how dared you bring me back from death, back, with a thousand new feelings, and passions, and desires? It was you who gave them to me." [Illustration: LOLA BEGS DICK FENWAY TO TAKE HER AWAY.] She was leaning forward now, across the table, her eyes glaring at her father, who sat huddled in his chair, his face slowly changing from a look of shame and agony to one of horror. "You made me what I am. In your narrow, rusty lives you, none of you," she turned again to the others, "know that outside your rotten little world there is a life that is all gayety and sunshine. I am going to it. I'm done with you--all of you!" Before they could stop her, if any there had dared to stop her, she left them. They heard her going down the hall, and heard the door close behind her. CHAPTER XII LOLA'S FLIGHT Dick Fenway's apartment was a popular place for after-theatre parties, or any other description of informal evening merry-making. It was well within the "lobster belt," less than five minutes taxi-ride from "anywhere." It was, or rather was announced as "strictly a bachelor apartment," but to a casual observer its "strictness" was largely a matter of the imagination. Mrs. Harlan once remarked that the thing she liked about a classy bachelor apartment was "that they were the only places in New York where they knew how to treat a lady."