Quickly, please!"
"I was in the drawing-room talking to Mr. Littleson," Virginia said,
"when I heard the small alarm bell that I had had fitted on to the
library door ring. I came in and found Stella here. She locked me in.
She is very strong. I had no idea that she was so strong," Virginia
murmured, half closing her eyes and fainting away.
He hurried to her side, and forced some more brandy between her lips.
Then he laid her flat on the floor, and began to walk up and down.
"So this is Stella's work," he muttered to himself. "That accounts for
the message I had yesterday, that she was seen driving with Littleson.
What she did for that blackguard Vine, she has done for them!"
His face, no longer an amiable one, grew sterner as he walked backwards
and forwards, his hands behind him, his eyes fixed upon the carpet. He
had staked a good deal on his possession of this hold upon the men who
had been his associates. The whole situation had to be readjusted in the
altered light of events. The first impulse of the man, to act, seemed
strangled almost at its birth by the absolute futility of any move he
could possibly make. He had no idea where to find his daughter, with
whom she was living, or how.
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