"And why not?" was her answer. "I am ready if you are, Harold. How _could_ you give me all this anxiety for such a trifle? I want you, my dear, not the money. But I thought you must have had some other reason for going away." "What other reason could I have had?" asked Burton, quickly, and waiting apprehensively for her reply. "Never mind. I'll tell you later. Only the twenty thousand pounds! Well, after all, I'm not surprised to hear of the loss." "_I_ was very much astonished, and very wretched when I heard it. I can't take the loss of all that money as quietly as you seem to do, Brenda. And not only mine has gone, but Wilfred's too. Forty thousand pounds, and all his own fortune! Great Scot! the man must have played day and night to get rid of it. What folly for my father to leave it so completely in his power. If there had only been another trustee to pull him up. I don't want to speak evil of the dead," cried Harold, wrathfully, "but I could find it in my heart to curse Malet." "No, don't, Harold. His terrible death was punishment enough. How was it that Mr. van Zwieten came to know of this?" "I can't say. He refused to tell me. But he did know, and he tried to make me give you up on that account. Of course I told him--well, never mind what I said--it was strong and to the point. Brenda, we have a dangerous enemy in Van Zwieten." "I always knew we had. And now that this crime has been committed he is more dangerous than ever." "How do you know that?" Harold looked anxiously at her. "He threatened me the other day." "Threatened you!--the hound! What did he say?" "He told me, if I did not give you up and marry him, he would get my father into trouble over Mr. Malet's murder." "Does he suspect your father?" "Yes, and no. He insists that father was cognizant of the murder, but I think he puts the actual deed down to the man with the crape scarf." "That may be true. Remember what I found!" "I remember. I also made a discovery," and Brenda told him how she had found the crape scarf burning in the grate of her father's study at Chippingholt, how her father had asserted that he was the man seen by Harold, and many other things. Indeed, she told him all she knew, including her conversations with Lady Jenny, with Wilfred, with Van Zwieten and with her father. Chin in hand, Harold listened attentively, putting in a word now and then. When she had finished, he looked utterly perplexed. "It's all such a muddle I can't get at the rights of it," he said. "No one will speak out straight, and every one seems to have something to hide. Bad as Van Zwieten is, I don't believe he killed Malet. I don't see what motive he could have had." "Unless, as Wilfred says, it were for political reasons."