"Why do you want to marry me?" "I can tell you that now," he said: "Because you are a very rich woman and I want your money, half of which comes to me on my marriage." "Then the man spoke the truth!" She sat up suddenly, but the effort made her head swim. He caught her by the shoulders and laid her gently down. "What man--not that babbling idiot, Bridgers?" He said something, but instantly recovered his self-possession. "Keep quiet," he said with professional sternness. "Yes, you are the heiress of an interesting gentleman named John Millinborn." "John Millinborn!" she gasped. "The man who was murdered!" "The man who was killed," he corrected. "'Murder' is a stupid, vulgar word. Yes, my dear, you are his heiress. He was your uncle, and he left you something over six million dollars. That is to say he left us that colossal sum." "But I don't understand. What does it mean?" "Your name is Predeaux. Your father was the ruffian----" "I know, I know," she cried. "The man in the hotel. The man who died. My father!" "Interesting, isn't it?" he said calmly, "like something out of a book. Yes, my dear, that was your parent, a dissolute ruffian whom you will do well to forget. I heard John Millinborn tell his lawyer that your mother died of a broken heart, penniless, as a result of your father's cruelty and unscrupulousness, and I should imagine that that was the truth." "My father!" she murmured. She lay, her face as white as the pillow, her eyes closed. "John Millinborn left a fortune for you--and I think that you might as well know the truth now--the money was left in trust. You were not to know that you were an heiress until you were married. He was afraid of some fortune-hunter ruining your young life as Predeaux ruined your mother's. That was thoughtful of him. Now I don't intend ruining your life, I intend leaving you with half your uncle's fortune and the capacity for enjoying all that life can hold for a high-spirited young woman." "I'll not do it, I'll not do it, I'll not do it," she muttered. He rose from the chair and bent over her. "My young friend, you are going to sleep," he said to himself, waited a little longer and left the room, closing the door behind him. He descended to the hall and passed into the big dining-hall beneath the girl's bedroom. The room had two occupants, a stout, hairless man who had neither hair, eyebrows, nor vestige of beard, and a younger man. "Hello, Bridgers," said van Heerden addressing the latter, "you've been talking." "Well, who doesn't?" snarled the man. He pulled the tortoiseshell box from his pocket, opened the lid and took a pinch from its contents, snuffling the powder luxuriously. "That stuff will kill you one of these days," said van Heerden. "It will make him better-tempered," growled the hairless man. "I don't mind people who take cocaine as long as they are taking it. It's between dopes that they get on my nerves."