“You,” she said holding away from him as from some abhorrent thing, “you are the blackmailer. You are the man she has been buying silence from. You are the man who wrecked her life, who has driven her to forgery, and worse. I believe you are the most contemptible creature on God’s earth.”

Not a muscle of the man’s face moved as he listened. “Like you, I begin to see,” he declared, his tone smooth as before. “Well, it doesn’t matter a whole lot. Adèle has been putting her foot in it, possibly getting out of her depth at the races, and she has hinted to you that she is being blackmailed. Anyhow, she has done some foolish things, and you are standing between her and trouble. That’s what it amounts to. No, Miss Noelson, I am not a blackmailer. There was something between Adèle and me many years ago, before her marriage, and possibly a crook has got some foolish letters of ours.”