“So!” Crang smiled a little wickedly. “I wonder where you get the _gambling_ spirit from? One of these days you'll find out how serious these attacks are!” He took a step forward. “Your father tells me you have been over to Hawkins' room.” There was a curious hint of both challenge and perverted humor in his voice. It set at rest any lingering doubt Claire might have had. “Yes,” she said, and faced him now, her eyes, hard and steady, fixed on his. “Poor Hawkins!” sighed Doctor Crang ironically. “Even the best of us have our vices! It should teach us to be tolerant with others!” Claire's little form was rigidly erect. “I wonder if you know how much I hate you?” she said in a tense, low voice. “You've told me often enough!” A savage, hungry look came into Crang's eyes. “But you're mine, for all that! Mine, Claire! Mine! You understand that, eh?” He advanced toward her. The door of the inner room, that for weeks, until a few days ago, had been occupied by John Bruce, was just behind her, and she retreated through it. He followed her. She did not want to cry out--the sound would reach the sick room above; and, besides, she dared not show the man that she had any fear. “Don't follow me like that!” she breathed fiercely. “Why not?” he retorted, as he switched on the light and closed the door. “I've got the right to, even if I hadn't something that I came over here particularly to-night to tell you about--quite privately.” She had put the table between them. That he made no effort to come nearer for the moment afforded her a certain relief, but there was something in the smile with which he surveyed her now, a cynical, gloating triumph, that chilled her. “Well, what is it?” she demanded. “I trapped that damned lover of yours to-night!” he announced coolly. Claire felt her face go white. It _was_ true, then! She fought madly with herself for self-possession. “If you mean Mr. Bruce,” she said deliberately, “I was just going to try to warn him over the phone; though, even then, I was afraid I was too late.” “Ah!” he exclaimed sharply. “You knew, then?” Claire shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, yes!” she said contemptuously. “My faith in you where evil is concerned is limitless. I heard your threats. I saw Hawkins a few minutes ago. He was quite--quite helpless. You, or some of your confederates, traded on his weakness, took the key of the car away from him, and then stole the car. Ordinary thieves would not have acted like that.” An icy smile came to her lips. “His landlady thought the police should be notified that the car had been stolen.”