“She would have obeyed me in the end,” and Barnard’s dark eyes flamed in sudden baffled rage. “We might have gone on indefinitely, but I grew to hate the influence you, Duncan Fordyce, exerted over Marjorie”--Barnard’s manner betrayed genuine emotion. “I planned to get her away from here. Miss Pauline had told me when I accompanied her home from the Charity Ball, that she suspected Marjorie of stealing her mother’s pearl necklace, and I suggested that she call here and charge Marjorie with the theft, and also told her to ask Janet what she knew of the theft. She said she would go and see Mrs. Fordyce this morning, so I made an appointment to see Janet before Miss Pauline got here. I saw Janet alone, and by auto-suggestion forced her to testify against Marjorie.” A horrified gasp escaped Marjorie, and for the first time he turned and looked fully at her. “I loathed poverty and I loved you,” he said, and there was infinite pathos in his charmingly modulated voice. “No other woman counted,” he stumbled in his speech, his passion mastering him. “My punishment lies in losing you. Have you no word for me?” stretching out his hands imploringly. But Marjorie bowed her head, unable to speak. Potter, watching her closely, saw she was on the point of collapse. “Go and call the police, Duncan,” he began, then stopped speaking as the room was plunged in darkness. Barnard, taking his hand from the electric light switch, sprang noiselessly out of the room and raced down the hall, Duncan at his heels. He gained the front steps by a narrow margin, and one leap carried him through the open door of the waiting taxi-cab. Duncan stood watching the disappearing rear lights of the taxi-cab with mixed emotions, then turned on his heel and re-entered the house. He met the three older men in the hall, and they accompanied him back to the Chinese room. Joe turned from the open window on their appearance. “Did Kathryn go with Barnard?” he asked in a voice he strove to make steady. “Yes,” answered Duncan. J. Calhoun-Cooper stepped forward at the sight of his son’s grief-stricken face, and laid an affectionate hand on his shoulder. “Come home with me, my boy,” he said, and his tone gave Joe some ray of comfort. “I need you,” and shoulder to shoulder, father and son stepped from the room. Without speaking to the Fordyces, Pauline followed her father and brother out into the hall. Potter slipped his arm inside Calderon Fordyce’s. “Let us see them off the premises,” he suggested, and paused only long enough to carefully close the hall door behind them.