"What do you mean?"
"I mean," said the other, fiercely earnest, "that for a month I've worked to sell that land! I had young Maillard hooked and landed—it would have been poetic justice to make him hand over a small fortune to Lucie! But that deal is off, since he's in jail. And do you know why young Maillard wanted to buy the land? For the same reason you don't want to sell. I sent him out there and he saw that oil seepage, as I meant that he should! He thought he would skin Lucie out of her land, not dreaming that I had prepared a nice little trap to swallow him. And now you come along——"
"Man, what are you driving at?" exclaimed Gramont. He was startled by what he read in the other man's face.
"Merely that I planted that oil seepage myself—or had it done by men I could trust," said Jachin Fell, calmly. He sat back in his chair and took up his cigar with an air of finality. "The confession is shameless. I love Lucie more than my own ethical purity. Besides, I intend to wrong no one in the matter."
Gramont sat stunned beyond words. The oil seepage—a plant!
The thing could have been very easily done, of course. As he sat silent there unfolded before him the motives that underlay Fell's entire action. The amazing disclosure of Jachin Fell's intrigue to enrich the girl left him bewildered. This, coupled with what he had learned on the preceding day about Jachin Fell, put his own course of action into grave perplexity.
There was no reason to doubt what Fell said. Gramont believed the little man sincere in his love for Lucie.
"No matter what the outcome, your reputation will not be affected," said Fell, quietly. "The company which will buy this land of Lucie's is controlled by me. You understand? Even if no oil is ever found there, I shall see to it that you will not be injured because of that signed statement."
Gramont nodded dull comprehension. He realized that Fell had devised this whole business scheme with infernal ingenuity; had devised it in order to take a hundred and fifty thousand dollars out of his own pocket and put it into that of Lucie. It was a present which the girl would never accept as a gift, but which, if it came in the way of business, would make her financially independent. Nobody would be defrauded. There was no chicanery about it. The thing was straight enough.
"That's not quite all of my plan," pursued Fell, as though reading Gramont's unuttered thoughts. "The minute this news becomes public, the minute your statement is published, there will be a tremendous boom in that whole section. I shall take charge of Lucie's money, and within three weeks I should double it, treble it, for her. Before the boom bursts she will be out of it all, and wealthy. Now, my dear Gramont, I do not presume that you will still refuse to vote with me? I have been quite frank, you see."