"Tell me the truth!" he cried. "For heaven's sake don't lie to me! I'm a broken man! You've got fifty million dollars, possibly a hundred million standing in your name. What do you suppose I've spent my last few thousands for but to get information that was reliable and positive. I know Peter V. Wilkinson—and I'm the only one, I'll wager, who knows the truth. Next week, next year, the world will say that Wilkinson is bankrupt—without a dollar in the world. But I know—I've found out. There is not another man in the world who could do the thing he's done—strip a million people of their savings and hide it so successfully. That's Wilkinson! Now whom could he trust—but you? You've got it all!"
The girl was pale, but there was a new light in her eyes. She began to perceive that the man who confronted her was not a mere overwrought specimen of mankind. However much he might be mistaken this time, he was talking with the force of business habit.
"You know as well as I, Mr. Ilingsworth, that I can't very well discuss these matters with you," she said frankly. "My father is ruined—I don't believe he will come out of this with a dollar. Who is responsible for his ruin, I do not know." Little wrinkles creased her forehead; she stopped uncertain how to continue. "It's the panic, I suppose," she went on presently, "and he's gone down under it like other Wall Street men. Only the blow—he suffered, perhaps, more than the others."
Ilingsworth's lip curled.
"I know," he began emphatically, "I know that Peter V. Wilkinson is still worth from fifty to a hundred million dollars—money sucked like life-blood from the populace. I know that and more—his entire fortune stands, in a manner and by a method that no one ever will suspect, in your name. Your name, of course—whom else could he trust? Surely not his second wife, with all that money? You know that well enough."
"Mr. Ilingsworth, I——"
"And because you had these millions," went on Ilingsworth hurriedly, excitedly, "among them my quarter of a million, not mine, but Elinor's,—do you know what that means to her?"
Leslie was strangely affected. She felt her consciousness vacillating between a sense of danger and a sense of pity. Surreptitiously, during the first part of the interview, she had pressed the button for assistance, and had discovered, later, the disconnection of the wires. Just what to do she did not know. Above all, she realised that she must propitiate this man—this man with the grievance, real or fancied, whose statements, if true, gave her the desire to hear more; if untrue, rendered him all the more a man of danger. Impulsively she held out her hand, and said softly:
"Do tell me about your daughter—Elinor—Mr. Ilingsworth."
Immediately Ilingsworth dropped his air of aggressiveness. He advanced slowly toward her, his right hand still in his coat-pocket, but, as he approached her, he drew forth that hand, and with it, a small photograph.