"No!" Lorelei gulped.

"'No police record as YET'--'Broker living at the Charlevoix
Apartments'--'Injured by a taxi-cab while intoxicated,'" quoted
Wharton. "Scandal, blackmail, graft. It's all here, Bob. And I
hadn't come to this girl's record. The report was made by one of
our own men, and it's incomplete, but I can have it elaborated.
What do you say, MRS. WHARTON? Is it true?"

Lorelei dropped her head. "Most of it, I dare say."

"Did you try to blackmail Merkle?"

"No."

"Your mother and your brother did."

She was silent.

"They tried to scare him into marrying you, did they not?"

"Hammon said something about that," ejaculated Bob, "but I don't
believe--"

Lorelei checked him. "It's quite true."

"Merkle said you had nothing to do with it personally,"
conscientiously explained Mr. Wharton, "and I'm willing to take
his word. But that's neither here nor there." There was a moment
of silence during which he folded and replaced the report; then he