Illegitimacy and other reasons may bar her rights. The heiress knows nothing and she has not a paper.
Some outsider must fight this case.
In Hardin's dreams he sees his enemies at his feet. On Ernesto Villa Rocca's handsome face is the pallor of death. Lagunitas and its millions are his by right of power and cunning.
Marie B‚rard's avenger is thousands of miles away from her grave, and his cunning plan already woven to ensnare the Italian when off his guard. Yet Hardin's blood boils to feel that "the secret for a price" is buried in Marie B‚rard's grave. Toss as he may, his dreams do not discover the lost secret. Even Philip Hardin may meet a Nemesis.
Villa Rocca, slain by a well-contrived accident, died for a secret he knew not.
His own hand slew the woman who knew alone of the changelings, save the bright and defiant ex-queen of the El Dorado.
Dark memories hover around some of the great mines of the Pacific. Giant stock operations resulted from a seeming accidental fire. A mine filled with water by mysterious breakage of huge pumps. Hoisting machinery suddenly unmanageable; dashing to their doom unsuspecting wretches. Imprisoned miners, walled up in rich drifts, have died under stifling smoke, so that their secrets would die with them.
Grinning Molochs of finance have turned markets on these ghastly tricks.
Madame de Santos may never suspect how a steel spike adroitly set could cut a rope and dash even a noble Villa Rocca to his doom, carrying down innocent men as a mask to the crime.
In the clear sky of Natalie's complacency, a lightning stroke of the gods brings her palace of delight crashing down around her. Nemesis!